The Dying of the Light unfinished
by Luna Manar
Summary: A journey through darkness and light, where Death has a name and a face, life and freedom are a sin, and the only weapon sharp enough to cut through the chaos is already in pieces. Endgame fic.
1. Captive Hopes

1

Captive Hopes

--

__

"I have been to Hell and Back

A pawn of time's foul beck;

Sin-scarred Knight and branded Black

A king of beasts in check."

--

If there was one word that could describe Squall's thoughts as of the moment he stepped into the Master Chamber of the cursed castle, it would have been "confused."

He had expected a great audience chamber, a mass of guardian beasts to protect the ruler of the time-compressed world. He had envisioned a throne surrounded by monsters, atrocities of nature to freeze the soul and creatures devised to deal all types of unspeakable deaths to any who would challenge their master. He had pictured an ornate room, filled with incense and candles, gold-trimmed curtains, tapestries and carvings about the ceiling. All these he had prepared himself for, plus an immediate attack upon his intrusion to Sorceress Ultimecia's hallowed lair.

Instead he found not booby-traps and chaos, but what seemed, at first, to be a hollow, tomb-like shrine. Pillars held up the stout walls of the area, but there was none of the illustrious décor that would otherwise outfit a ruler's chambers. Nothing of the sort, in fact; the floor was smooth tile, arranged in a simple design of blue and grey. There was no ceiling. The pillars that supported the structure also crowned it, giving it the appearance of a miniature coliseum. The walls were stone, even crumbling here and there, dusty and decrepit in the shadows. And in the center of it all was not a simple throne, but the only ornate design in the entire circular space.

High up on a pedestal, guarded only by two torches at either side, was a single chair, shaped to look more like that of a justice's seat than a monarch's throne. Behind and above, a stone griffin sat diligently watching, a silent, lonely sentinel that was the only private witness to the throne's single occupant.

Having crept inside the doorway one by one, Squall, Quistis, Selphie, Zell, Rinoa and Irvine cast about their bizarre surroundings, and all lowered their weapons with hesitant wills at the lack of resistance they encountered. Save Rinoa, who carried no weapon. She stayed behind the others, her eyes locked on the initially motionless figure upon the throne.

"…The hell?" Zell sneered, cracked his neck in bored confusion at the empty-looking place. "Rinoa, I thought you said she was in here."

"She _is,_" Squall answered for her, pointing to the elevated throne. "Look up there."

Zell did, shading his eyes as if to see far into the distance. "That's _her? _But she's like, meditating or somethin'. I thought that was a statue!"

Irvine nudged him in the shoulder. "Hey," he muttered, "don't complain. Maybe it's just the break we need to catch her off guard?"

The statue Ultimecia opened her golden eyes, and trained them wordlessly on those who would seek to destroy her.

Every murmur of conversation stopped. Every weapon was hefted with a _click _or a _snap._

Selphie pulled on Irvine's coat, hissed conspiratorially, "She _heard _that!"

All six froze in an odd sort of wonder. Was this truly Ultimecia? Had they reached her, at last?

The woman in the throne moved, finally, stretching the claw-like fingers of her right hand and sighing visibly, as if awakening from a long nap. Little could be seen of her while she was sitting, save a grandly exaggerated headpiece, giving her the appearance of sporting two long, tapering horns that meandered outward two feet to either side of her smallish head. Her face was narrow and painted, velvety violet stripes gracing her ashen cheeks to meet at the corners of her thin, dark lips. She was obscenely pale, a violent contrast to her rich, dark robes. Long tresses of silver hair fell across her shoulders, though to look at her, she could not have been much older than a college girl.

The two sides were silent for long moments, staring, sizing each other up while the wind howled beyond the walls.

"_Well_…" The word was Ultimecia's, the first she had spoken. She sounded like one prematurely aged, a raucous, distinctly staccato crow's voice echoing from the throat of a young woman. "What a surprise. So you _are _the one who has headed the fight. I did not think that we would meet again." Her eyes singled out the leader of her assassins, pinning him with spade-shaped pupils.

Squall's eyes pulled up in confusion. She was speaking to _him. What is she talking about?_

"Squall, do you know—"

"No," he cut Rinoa's question off in the middle with a sharp look over his shoulder. "I don't…"

"Of korse not," the sorceress spat from her high-rise. "No _man _could ever remember such things—"

It was Ultimecia's turn to be interrupted, by a high-toned voice of the smallest of the six, a girl in yellow who pushed her way through to the front of the group. "Set all the people free," Selphie cried, as commanding as she could make herself sound, "and fix time back to the way it _should _be!" She fixed Ultimecia with an uncharacteristic scowl. "Or else, we'll have to destroy you, and we'd rather not do that."

__

Speak for yourself, Squall caught himself thinking.

"Selphie—!"

Squall twisted, barely avoiding a edge of a white-hot rod of energy that had erupted from one of the torches at Ultimecia's side. The cry he heard immediately following his evasive maneuver had been Irvine's—and he felt the hairs on his neck rise as though they'd been singed by the beam that had rushed past him. A murmur grew around him, and he fought the inclination to turn and stare. He would not turn his back on Ultimecia. But the more he listened, the more desperately he wanted to see—though he didn't need to, from what it sounded like. His jaw clenched anxiously, and his hands gripped his weapon tighter as he listened to the verdict from the parched throat of the witch:

"Time is as it should be."

And behind him, though he could not see, he knew—Selphie was gone. Just like that. No real reason, no warning, no fight. That was it. She was…

Squall's brow furrowed. _That was too easy._

Irvine's choked voice behind him only confirmed Squall's dark belief. The attack had not been meant for him. Only to silence the offender who had dared to cry out in the defense of humankind.

"Sefie… Aw, _no…_"

For Squall, Irvine's grief faded into a haze of his own anger. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rinoa come to stand beside him, and he didn't care to read what news was on her face. _Selphie…you didn't even get to fight. _Though he loathed to see the expression, Squall forced himself to look away from Ultimecia's impassive leer, and at Rinoa's shocked expression of grief.

Not even Selphie's Guardians had not been able to protect her.

But it was just a single blast of magic. Nothing special. How…? What kind of power is this?

Squall's mind whirled. Was Ultimecia truly that strong? Every defense they had prepared, every shield they had erected before they had set foot in this room—was it all for nothing? He searched Rinoa's stare for answers. He found none. _Selphie…_

Until now, Squall had not lost a single person under his command, not outside of the Gardens' clash. It seemed that record no longer stood.

He felt a hand on his other shoulder, turned to find Quistis staring at him. She was clearly frightened. 

__

So am I. They were all frightened.

Zell knelt beside Irvine and the fallen Selphie, who lay unmoving at the base of the door they had come through, a large, black mark scorched into the chest of her yellow outfit. The oversized nunchakus she had been holding only moments ago lay broken and tangled alongside her lifeless form. She looked peaceful, as though sleeping, but Zell knew without feeling that it was not a sleep to be interrupted, likely for good. Oddly, he could not find it in himself to grieve. He could not feel anything at all. Only the vague, emotionless realization that this was it—he was here, at the end of their journey, and they would face Ultimecia to the death.

Amidst a momentary panic in which he didn't truly feel fear, Zell leaned closer to Irvine and roughly shook his sorrow-shocked friend by the shoulder, whispering at the top of his throat. "Shit, man, whaddo we do?"

Shrugging the SeeD off with an irritable shove, Irvine dismissed the question, too deep in the image of Selphie's prone heap to care about much else. "_I _dunno," he choked in response. "Squall's the genius."

Zell frowned. "Bull! He can't do everything himself! We gotta—"

He froze, stared. Selphie was _fading, _becoming translucent before his eyes.

Irvine's choked cry nearly came as a screech as he tried desperately to hold onto the still hand of Selphie's slowly vanishing form. But the more transparent she became, so too did she grow more insubstantial, and in moments, Irvine's trembling fingers were clutching at cold, soulless air.

The sharpshooter's eyes seemed dead. He knelt, unbreathing, beside the place where Selphie had once been. "We…we stopped believing," he murmured suddenly, blindly looking over at Zell.

"Whoa, hang it, Irv…you sayin' that when she died, we stopped believing she existed? I don't _think _so, man."

"_No! _Can't you SeeDs use your heads?" Irvine slammed his eyes shut, tearing his hat from his head and clutching it in both hands. "To us, she's gone! _Gone!_"

"So she disappears? I still don't get it—" Zell's attention was stolen by Squall's voice, raised and angry in Ultimecia's direction. He looked behind him to see their leader advancing slowly toward Ultimecia's pedestal. 

"So what if I led a war," he was shouting, slashing at the air with his free arm. "Aren't I just another SeeD to you?"

Ultimecia, having watched the proceedings dispassionately, daintily folded her knife-point hands. "Ahh, SeeD…" 

It was a pleasant voice, one that put Squall on edge and made the hairs rise at the back of his neck once more, this time in a chilling sense of recognition that he had not felt a moment ago. He'd heard that coarse voice before, he was sure of it…

"SeeD, SeeD…." She seemed to contemplate, then began to laugh. "SeeD, SeeD, _SeeD! _Bah! Fools, all of you. Kurse all SeeDs." The sorceress leaned back easily in her throne, lifting her right arm to motion with her devilish hand as she spoke, her casual tone filling the open room with an air of deception. "You spend your worthless lives preparing for a hopeless battle. Now, you swarm on your fruitless crusade like lokusts across the generations, spreading your righteous vanity like a plague!" She lost her calm, her grating voice became one of disdain and scorn. "Very well, then… Soon you will see, children, the naïves that you are." 

Squall felt the sorceress' stare turn on him before he saw it, met it, held it. Hatred, pure and unencumbered, twisted in his heart. 

He hadn't the chance to act upon it. "But _you!_" Ultimecia leveled a slender finger at him.

The pain was sharp, quick. It failed to bring a sound from Squall as her directed words cast an unseen spell that hauled him off the floor and into the air. This was no lightweight levitation spell he was subject to; he felt as though someone was holding him up by his ribs. He struck out uselessly with his weapon, slashing only air, stopped the struggle when little came of it, and hung in the air by nothing, staring lividly at this witch who held him in her power. His breaths came heavy, not out of fear but that terrible hatred; somehow, instinctively, he _knew _this was Ultimecia and not a counterfeit. He also knew, though he had never before seen her—or had he?—that he hated her, despised her with a passion so powerful it shocked him. His eyes narrowed at her, his brow knitted. She stared back with infuriating coolness. 

He could see her, now, in clear detail. She stood slowly, revealing a voluptuous figure barely concealed by robes of blood red. Her body was painted, too; stripes, like artificial veins, traced her pale flesh in currents along the contours of her belly, throat, and what was visible of young breasts that belied the aged voice and hair of this woman of timeless power. Behind her—what he had thought at first to be a decoration of her throne—raven-black wings folded with a soft rustle. Sorceress wings, like Rinoa's, only these were black and sleek, not of the encompassing softness Squall had seen in Rinoa's, had often wished he could touch. He recoiled from Ultimecia's image as something poisonous, even as it captivated him; it was a dark beauty that graced this sorceress, sensual, arousing in an awful, sickening sort of way. His mind struggled like a thing speared.

A simple motion of Ultimecia's clawed fingers sent the gunblade flying from his hand. At first, both Squall and Ultimecia had ignored the shouts below them. Squall noticed one voice, now. He heard it through the sharp pain that had assaulted his hand, beyond even the cold, rising ache that seemed to be gradually creeping outward from his gut. He heard the weapon clatter to the floor, and then—

Searing pain shot through his body like a bolt, made him jerk in midair. He spat a sharp cry of shock.

"_Squall!"_

Rinoa— His mind, if not his voice, reciprocated the call with automatic responsiveness. He shut trembling eyes against the pain, suddenly weak beyond fathoming. He barely managed to raise his head and open his eyes wide enough to see that he was hanging in a nightmarishly familiar fashion, arms forced out to his sides. He felt constricted and fought for breath he couldn't seem to catch. He noticed distantly that the pain in his gut had spread out to his hands, and that it was channeling through thread-thin lines that appeared to pass straight through him—

Through him?

Squall's consciousness returned fully at this realization, and he forced himself to look around him. He growled and hung his head feebly, trembled on the support of three wires that did indeed pass straight through him, skewering his stomach and wrists. The spell that had been lifting him up was gone. He was supported twenty feet in the air by the torturous strings alone. He dared not move. Any motion caused the black things that held him to rake ruthlessly at every muscle and nerve they passed through. He turned his head to search the ground below him for—something. What had he in mind? Voices reached him from below, all at once, overlapping each other like rising steam.

"Ultimecia, let him go—"

"Holy shit, the hell is she _doing—"_

"No, Squall—"

He heard loud _cracks _and felt the world shake painfully around him as a number of powerful spells struck a bubble-shaped dome around Ultimecia. The blasts faded away harmlessly._ You can't get to her that way, _he thought silently to his friends. _She's too strong…our magic doesn't mean anything to her._ Ultimecia was talking to him. He had come closer to her somehow, brought to her on a whim. He lifted his head to stare at her through a haze that stung. He heard her too clearly.

"_You,_" she spat accusatorily ."Led them. Brought them here. Are you _fool _enough to think I wouldn't _notice!_"

He started to answer. "You—"

"_Silence!_ Look down there, Squall. Look at your friends."

Slowly, unable to do anything else, Squall did so. He saw four faces staring at him, all wide-eyed with fear. Looking into those helpless expressions, he understood with a terrible, numbing certainty that he was to be butchered before their eyes. 

"The ones you care for the most," Ultimecia hissed, "the ones who trust you to all ends, _you _have brought them here, and their blood is on your hands."

__

Like hell… Squall shook the guilt she was throwing on his shoulders. He knew that giving up on the basis of shame was a incantation for ruin. He tried to buy time. If he could find the mind to think, come up with anything, a skill learned in Garden, a spell, anything that would break the magical wires that pierced him and held him suspended and paralyzed… "What…you choose to do, I have no control over," he rasped through the hot pain in his lungs. "If they die, it isn't anyone's fault…but yours." He coughed, causing the wires to slide mercilessly against his insides. He grimaced at the metallic taste of his own blood, and forced himself to swallow the gore despite the tightening knot in his throat, lest he drool red as he murmured shakily, "I'm not just giving up. Just a bully…you're just a bully like Seifer."

"Brave words," was the predictable answer, "but foolish ones." Ultimecia, bored of the stunned silence below her and Squall's stubborn stolidity, smiled wickedly at the horrified fools below her, waved her arm in Squall's direction. "You've had your chance. Now, they will watch you suffer!"

This time Squall was conscious of his injury, and his choked and broken shouts of torture rebounded off the high walls of the place as several more "wires"—barbed and frayed here and there like old twine—struck him one after another, from all odd directions, with no discernable source or end. They shot into and through his shoulders, his sides, arms, legs, all at uneven angles, twisting him forcibly until he resembled nothing so much as a ragged marionette whose strings had become hopelessly tangled. He choked wretchedly as a thorny thread settled itself securely just beside and against his heart. His heavy pulse became torture with every beat.

Ultimecia seemed pleased with his reaction. "Feel the agony, Squall," she hissed fervently. "_Enjoy _it, for it shall be all you know!" 

Some distant part of Squall's mind registered the fact that her voice had changed, suddenly. Ultimecia no longer sounded hateful or even angry; her tone had smoothed out, become encouraging, even alluring. He fought against a sudden, terrible inclination to simply release his mind, release his will. The light of Rinoa's voice below began to cloud over with Ultimecia's presence. Squall shuddered, pain forgotten.

__

I'll give you one last chance, Ultimecia's voice whispered seductively to him in the darkness. _Release your will to me, Squall. Let me cherish your soul. You will never have to fear again. Never will you fear death, for it will claim you! _She curled her deadly fingers into a fist. _Surrender, Squall! To me, Squall, to me… Squall…_

"Squall! _Squall!"_

The screams penetrated Squall's overcast mind, a shaft of blinding sound in his slowly fading realm of will. 

__

What? Ultimecia's voice lost its enchantment, and Squall pulled himself from her—pulled his _soul _from her. 

__

Not you— He cried out defiantly, and for a time he faced Ultimecia in his mind. In the next moment, he had powerfully, violently forced her out. 

The wires snapped taut and lifted him up a few inches, hoisting him to a new height of pain and bringing forth a fractured, agonized growl that caught and stuttered in his throat. He gasped in shock, breathed in some of his own blood, and retched, which only served to make the wires of torture tremble.

__

She can't have me, he managed to himself through the agony, through the fear. _Ultimecia…that's it. That's why she hasn't killed me. That's why she hasn't killed any of them. She wants me alive. She wants…she wants _me! 

"You cannot imagine what I can offer you…"

"Squall, don't listen!" 

__

Rinoa.

"Don't let her! Squall, fight her!"

Ultimecia's cooing voice echoed once again in his mind, drowning out Rinoa's cries, but failing to impede their message. _You have no power against me, Squall. You cannot fight forever. Spare yourself so much torture…let me have you. Let me embrace you. Come with me, give me your power—Squall, you will be my Knight!_

Again she reached for him. Again he forced her away from his spirit. _I don't think so, _he fired back silently, no longer aware of the time-compressed world around him. _That's the last thing I'll let you do._

Welcome me, and you will live a fantasy you couldn't possibly dream of. Accept me, and I will grant your wish of finality, Squall. Deny me, Ultimecia warned him, _and you will know the true meaning of suffering!_

__

Better that than to be screwed over by you. Squall felt Ultimecia's power grasp at his soul, and he forced it back a third time. _Forget it. You can't control me. _It occurred to him that _that _is what made Ultimecia so desperate. She could not control him, could not take him unless he fell to her.But why did she want him? What did he have that she felt she needed?

Agony fell upon him in torrents. Images flashed in his mind's eye, terrible images of pain, death and desolation. Balamb Garden, a crashed heap in the middle of a desecrated Esthar, both gutted from the inside and blackened to rot at Ultimecia's will. Ellone, captive to Galbadia's wardens and subject to their every joke and command and erotic desire. Rinoa, cornered by a monster that lingered on the edge of sight, such that only her frightened eyes and cowering body were visible before the shadowy beast rushed in and tore her to pieces in terrible, bloody detail. Himself, standing on the other end of a thin, transparent wall, only inches away but helpless to do anything but watch in horror and listen to her screams as the monster ripped her apart piece by agonizing piece.

The wires that held Squall became nothing to him. Pain had a different meaning now. His heart lurched, his stomach threatened to twist out of his gut, and his entire body shook in a ragged cry of torment.

__

You made your choice, Ultimecia crowed in his mind. _Now, suffer the consequences of your folly!_

"_Stop it!_" He could hear Rinoa scream, but could do nothing to ease her fear, her suffering, and he hated himself for it, hated Ultimecia for it. He fought the illusion, refused to believe that Rinoa was dead, that the images shown to him were anything but fiction. And if she lived…_because _she lived…Rinoa had only to choose to fight. He also knew that such a decision would have to be hers alone. He could only hang here. He could not fight. He had no strength. There was only one thing he _could _do, only one defense he could wield—his last and ultimate weapon:

Hope.

Below Squall's tortured form, Rinoa could not bear it any longer. Though Quistis stood behind her and tried to grab her shoulder to prevent her from moving toward Squall and, therefore, the witch, she avoided the hand and rushed forward a few steps, standing almost directly below Squall's skewered and trembling body. As she stared in terrified disbelief at the scene, her eyes fell to the stone floor, which was already beginning to bear the stain of a few drops of hot red, darkening the rock. 

She knew what Ultimecia was doing to him. Physical pain would never draw Squall into Ultimecia's maw of power. But _madness_, madness induced through torture of the soul… _What can I do?_ Someone behind her threw another spell, which sizzled harmlessly out of existence after striking Ultimecia's barrier. _I can't fight…I _can't _fight without him! _Despair pooled in her throat. She could always fight, always, as long as Squall was there beside her. But now, he was the one who needed to be fought for. The others had no ability to help him. So she had to. She was the only one with that power. She watched another drop of blood spatter against the stone. Her expression hardened, and she lifted her face to the wicked sorceress responsible for Squall's suffering. Her voice was angry, high-pitched, a scream from her heart. "_Ultimecia_—!"

Who only ignored her, continued regarding Squall with pride in her work, pride that sweetened her voice once again. "Such a pa_thet_ik sight." She chuckled quietly. "Worthless, if you do not serve me. You come here, when you _know _you have no power against me. What a fool."

Squall had heard Rinoa's enraged voice. "Yeah," he murmured quietly in response to Ultimecia's claim. Without any real breath, his words were tainted with his blood, but for a time, he vanquished the nightmares in his mind that threatened to tear his sanity into chaotic shreds. "What…you don't know can't kill you, right?" With supreme effort, he lifted his head to stare Ultimecia in the face. His eyes narrowed once again, but not in hatred, this time; his expression was one of calm amusement.

Ultimecia did not like this look. He knew something she did not. Once more, she tried to reach into his mind to take this understanding from him and make it her own. Once more, he deflected her with little effort. 

She was startled by a flaring blast that caused her shield to stiffen, and the bubble of protection became visible in a myriad of colors and streaks of energy. The barrier held, but the attack had made a considerable disturbance. Whatever had struck at her had been exceedingly powerful. For the first time in minutes, her attention turned from Squall and to the ground below. Her dagger-point eyes scanned the four living creatures before her, and the gaze eventually fell upon one, a girl in blue. Recognition further chilled Ultimecia's cold heart.

This foolish chit of a girl had storms in her narrow eyes, and seemed to be staring as much in concentration as anger. But how? Ultimecia should have sensed her before. Not to mention, the girl should have died in the ruthless cold of space! How was she still alive? "_She _is here!" The black-winged sorceress turned a smoldering glower on Squall, who hung limply, lifelessly in his little world of pain. If Rinoa could loose a spell powerful enough to strain Ultimecia's barrier…then she must still be a sorceress! 

For the first time since she had seen these children, Ultimecia felt a tinge of real fear. Her murderous scowl sent tremors through the wires that held Squall, punishing him. Her mind sent terrible, heart-wrenching images to him, emotions of raw despair, loneliness, fear. This was his doing. The life of this sorceress child—it was _his _fault! 

"How _dare _you," Ultimecia spoke quietly, dangerously, and her folded black wings shivered, an action that was mirrored by Squall's supports, shaking the wires ferociously, bringing a weak cry of physical and emotional rending from this young SeeD who had done her such injustice. Her tone was level, matter-of-fact and pitiless. "You shall die, Squall, and they will be witness to your death! But death will not come to you quickly. Not until you give yourself to me!"

Squall was still recovering from the shock of the twisting wires, managed to answer with a weak threat that held within it every hope he had ever harbored of surviving this encounter. "Doesn't matter. If I die, Rinoa…" His eyes darted down to the blue sorceress, remembering with feverish intensity the power he had sensed in the white wings. To his surprise, she was looking back at him, and for the briefest of moments, both suffering stares locked. "…_Rinoa _will fight you." And she was whole, she was alive—he would never believe the horrid lies that Ultimecia forced upon his soul. No, it was all a lot of fantasy. Meaningless, hollow. What he saw staring up at him was real, and what he felt in his heart, that was real, too. He did not look away from her, and Rinoa's resolve started to buckle under the pain she saw in his quivering eyes. But his face solidified, and he silently forbade her to fall to her despair. _You can do this, Rinoa. You have the ability. Use it. _"Even without me," he continued to speak to Ultimecia, though he did not for a moment remove his stare from Rinoa. "she has the power to destroy you. She and the others—"

The scorn he received for this distant warning was expected, and the wires that skewered him vibrated horribly in reprimand. "She is a mere trifle."

Rinoa had to step back to avoid being hit by the light rain of blood that fell to the floor. Fueled by anger, she whirled and released another white lance like she had used before on Ultimecia's shield. It was absorbed in the same manner as the previous one. 

"Bah," Ultimecia scoffed, sneering. "You are in love with her. How diskusting. A self-defeating concept, Squall. You of all people should know that by now. You can't possibly know the meaning of _real _love?" The sorceress eyed him as though he should understand what she was talking about.

Squall ignored her to the best of his ability, refusing to listen. He was keeping his eyes open to replace Ultimecia's hallucinations with the real sight of Rinoa's face.

The punishment for his defiance was many times anything he had endured before now. The wires twisted inside him, tearing muscle, constricting his heart. His mind became a killing field; friends died countless times in various, torturous fashions. The reality of hopelessness wrapped around him, suffocating him, and through it all, he wondered what his faceless parents would have done, had they known the fate that would one day befall their son.

"Ultimecia, release him!"

"Oh!" The witch scoffed at Rinoa's scream. "And for what reason, I ask you?" She gestured at Squall, who was all but dead hanging from wires that had suddenly thickened to steel cables. "You are in no position to make demands!"

"Because he's _not yours!_" With a cautious step forward, the blue sorceress made a fist with one hand, absently letting it stray to her chest. "He's given his heart to someone else. He has no need of you."

"You know not what you speak of," Ultimecia sneered in disgust. Of _korse _he needs me. Only I can offer him his true destiny."

"He can choose his _own _'destiny!'"

"How little you know, foolish girl."

Staring up at Ultimecia, Rinoa almost didn't notice that the world around her had vanished into black. She was left standing alone in a cold white spotlight, and when she turned around, found her friends gone. The only other people she could see were Ultimecia and Squall, and the latter was fast fading into the darkness. 

"You think you can kontend with me?" Ultimecia's voice surrounded even the blackness.

Rinoa whirled and stared at her in furious spite. "Where are the others?" she demanded shrilly. "You better not have hurt them!"

"Their kondition is no fare of yours." Ultimecia now regarded Rinoa with calm impassiveness, spreading and then folding her ravenshaded wings. "My suggestion to you is to leave. Now. No harm will come to you if you do this."

"Let Squall and the rest of them go, and I'll think about it."

The witch on her pedestal shook her head and tsked in what could have passed for honest sympathy, had Rinoa believed Ultimecia capable of such an emotion. "How unfortunate, little sorceress who does not understand what she is. You should have died in orbit, girl. You would have been so much better off."

Rinoa watched tensely as Ultimecia spread her wings again, the palms of her clawed hands pressed flat against each other. The sorceress' pedestal faded away, and when it was gone, she still remained aloft, descending only once her hands had parted. Her arms drifting down to her sides, she lowered herself to the floor with all the grace of living mist.

Rinoa backed up an involuntary pace. As a sorceress, she had also learned that she, too, could levitate herself using only her mind—no spells whatsoever—but she was awkward, clumsy at it to the point of not trusting herself to so much as boost herself six feet off the ground. But Ultimecia—_she _maneuvered air and earth as though there was little difference between the two. 

Against such ease, if Ultimecia meant to fight, how could Rinoa hope to survive? Even if their abilities were ultimately the same, Rinoa had no idea how to engage in a sorceress' duel, much less win. Her adversary seemed so much more experienced... Rinoa glanced up at the place Squall should have been, hanging from his wires. He was gone.

She was alone.

"And now, little witch," Ultimecia purred as she examined her own hands, ascertaining they were razor-sharp to her satisfaction, "We shall see who is superior in this challenge you have brought me. And you will die. I will tolerate no further interruptions."

__

Rinoa, strike at her! His body would not last much longer, but Squall's heart was still alive to call to Rinoa beneath his torment. _Fight her! She can't handle me and you at the same time! Do something. Anything! Damn it, Rinoa!_ Again he felt the blade-edged cables curl in his guts and under his skin. With Ultimecia's attention focused mainly on Rinoa, he had been able to fend off the nightmares, fight through to consciousness and hold onto it so that he could see what was happening before him.

Time was null. He knew that. To anyone other than Rinoa, Ultimecia, and himself, what he saw was not taking place, nor would it ever. He dared to struggle against the wires, to create a distraction, anything to veer the witch away from Rinoa. If he could draw Ultimecia's attentions for long enough… 

He ceased struggling with a dismal groan. _If I do that much more, I'll kill myself._ He was no good to Rinoa dead. She and Ultimecia were facing each other. Rinoa looked terrified, though she was doing her best not to show it. She kept looking in his direction, but acted as though she couldn't see him. Had Ultimecia masked him from her view?

__

She thinks she's alone…

Squall's own fear rose in his constricted throat, widening his bloodshot eyes. He knew Rinoa, knew that she could not stand alone, could not fight if she thought she was the only one left. Despite her earlier spouts of self-driven assaults on Ultimecia's shield, she was still dependant on others for support. If she felt that no one else was there with her, she would most certainly falter…

__

Rinoa! Rinoa, I'm right here! I'm here watching you. You're not alone! Salt sweat stung his dry eyes. He trembled, trying, then _forcing _himself to take in the breath to speak, to cry out, make some sort of noise. If she could not see him, then perhaps she would be able to hear him. _Come on, damn you, take a breath. Take a breath, say something, her name, anything._

"Rinoa! I'm here! Fight her—"

His air and words were choked off by the cables. He felt the life being squeezed from him. His breath stuttered in a bloody retch.

__

No…she won't kill me. She wants me alive. She won't kill me… "She—she's a master…of illusions!" 

If his words could be heard by anyone but Ultimecia, he did not know. But on the chance that Rinoa _could _hear him, if only faintly…if he could anger Ultimecia enough, get her to _punish _him enough, her guard would weaken, and Rinoa could strike…but only one way. And it meant his own destruction.

__

'Your words may not reach her, Squall, but your heart will.' 

He screamed past the atrocities that flooded his mind, seeing the images but not comprehending them. "She hasn't—taken you on…because she's _afraid!_" The cables threatened to tear him apart. "Afraid of us! Of you and I, _together!" _

Ultimecia's rage flooded him, attacking every sense and thought, tearing at his soul in a blind, sadistic fury.

"Strike at her! _Fight—_" 

Another wire. Another blade, pressed against his throat. He could no longer speak.

__

Fight!

"Squall?" Rinoa grasped at the air weakly, reaching for where Squall should be, but was not. Her fingers curled softly, closing around a hand she could no longer hold. Tears brought fire to her coal-black eyes. 

The witch had taken him. Taken him away to torture him. And there was _nothing _Rinoa could do about it. 

Rinoa felt her knees begin to give way, stumbled and barely kept herself standing. _Squall!_

Ultimecia had her hand up about to throw the killing spell. _So this is how it ends, _thought the blue sorceress in her despair. _This is…my death. Squall… _She thought back to her life, wished she could have said good-bye to so many people. _Angelo…I hope someone takes good care of you. Maybe Headmaster Cid will. He's so kind…he'd understand. _

This couldn't be right. There were too many people counting on her, counting on Squall, on Zell, Quistis, on _all _of them. 

__

A master…of illusions…

A whispering in her heart reached her in bitter fragments. She almost didn't hear it. Her eyes rose from her defeated despair and stared out into the blackness, away from the sight of the witch who was murmuring words that she somehow could understand, lyrics to a song of death that would take Rinoa and her soul into the darkness of Ultimecia's hell of servitude. "Squall…?"

__

…she's afraid!

Rinoa was once again straining to see into the dark, up where Squall should have been. "What…?" Was it really Squall that she heard, or were her memories playing cruel tricks with her?

__

Afraid of us!

"I don't understand." She trembled. Was it him? She could hear the final words of Ultimecia's inescapable incantation.

__

You and I…

"Squall, where are you!" A nightmare. This had to be a nightmare.

_She's a master of illusions…afraid of us…of you and I…_

A figure shuddered in the blackness, suspended high above the floor. _Has he been there all along?_

Rinoa, I'm right here!

"I can hear you..." Her whisper did not seem to make a sound. She faced Ultimecia, who raised her arm to the black heavens.

__

Fight her! You're not alone!

Blankly, the blue sorceress watched Ultimecia's hand fall to throw the spell. Squall's ring felt heavy and cold against her skin.

__

You and I—

It was coming for her. Her arm drifted up to ward off eternity, but ended up clutching the necklace of silver and steel and holding it tight against her chest. Her lips spoke in tandem with the last word she heard, cried out a singular incantation as the white-hot fire of Ultimecia's blast enveloped her.

_Together!_

The explosion flared and expanded, seemed to encompass the infinity of darkness in its entirety, a force of destruction that reached beyond the dark and into the deepness of endless existence. It surrounded her, blinded her with its brilliance. All around her, she could hear screaming, like the voices of a hundred tortured souls. She fell to her knees, aghast at the hellish roar—thousands upon thousands of spirits, all trapped, all howling in despair and pain, the agony of each one of them tangible to her. Pain so strong, it went beyond description. The pain of one who is being eaten alive, the screams of so many souls that now fed Ultimecia's dark heart of power. Trembling, Rinoa buried her face in her hands and wept with them, every spirit held captive within Ultimecia's dungeon all and at once became her own. And Squall—was he to be one of them? 

__

This can't be happening! How can anything so horrible be real?!

Then it died. All of it—the screaming, the blinding light, the searing heat, the death and desolation and fear. With a start she pushed herself to her feet, and stood staring. 

There he was. Trembling, suffering with the thousands, and gazing back at her with the saddest eyes that Rinoa had ever seen.

Ultimecia rose into the air and propelled herself backward to stand on nothing beside the cretin who had dared give her enemy support. 

"Fool! Worthless brat!"

Squall heard the curses, felt the harsh bite of claws on his cheek, but could not respond. He had no more strength left, had used what he didn't have in reserve to cry out in anguish at the sight of Ultimecia's power consuming Rinoa. He could barely move his eyes to see, or lift his head enough to stare. Blood streamed in rivulets from his wire-cut throat, and he tasted more of the sickening stuff in his mouth, but had no power to spit it out. He felt his heart dying, and could not fight or even react to the fear that was befalling him.

He couldn't so much as whimper as the steel cords pulled tighter. He had no choice. He would await death in silence.

Ultimecia was laughing, a raucous, nauseating noise. "Worthless! You make my life difficult. Your defiance is astounding, Squall. It makes no difference. She will die when I have a chance to deal with her. Meanwhile, there is nothing she can do to fight me. And while you hang here, dying…" With a horrible smile, Ultimecia reconsidered her judgement. "Ah, no, but you will not die, not yet." 

Squall wished he could have shaken his terror, or released the painful fear in some way. He could only listen as Ultimecia spelled out his sentence with unholy pleasure. "You deserve far worse. All of you, including those nitwits you brought with you. Death will bring no respite! What you shall endure is Death beyond Death, a dimension beyond your wildest imaginings, where _I_ am Truth, and all shall serve me for the rest of what you kall eternity! –But you," she hissed, her voice constricting in choked rage as she pulled him closer on his wires, "you will not be a slave. You have not the right! You will _suffer _agony beyond komprehension, but you will never die! Tell me, Squall, what is your worst nightmare? What grips your heart and twists your soul? What is the worst pain you can imagine? I will make it a hundred times as potent!"

Squall opened his eyes, raised his head just enough to look over at the place Rinoa had been.

She was still staring at him. Still alive. She had survived? There was disbelief and pain in her eyes. Had she realized, too, the only way to kill Ultimecia—here and now? _That's right, _he urged her silently. _You can't help me, Rinoa. The only thing you can do for me is stop this pain, and take Ultimecia down in the process. End this, _he pleaded, closing his eyes which were finally beginning to slicken with sadness._ Don't let this go on any longer than it has to. You have the power, _he thought solemnly. _Strike at Ultimecia. _

Strike at me!

The blue sorceress stood shaking, terrifyingly aware of the power she had just utilized. She had the strength to repel Ultimecia's attack with only a thought. She had never dreamed that possible. But…then, what Edea had told her must have been true. No matter how deadly the sorceress, no matter her age or experience… '_All those who share Hyne's power stand on level ground.' _

Rinoa was no more and no less powerful than Ultimecia herself. The witch's strength alone could not harm her. Squall had helped her see that. Now he suffered Ultimecia's punishment for it. 

Rinoa could not hurt Ultimecia with brute force, any more than Ultimecia could harm her. The black-winged sorceress would only deflect or absorb her attacks. The shield around her could stand up to most anything at all.

But not the wires.

Thinking about any way she could get around Ultimecia's shield, Rinoa remembered with a knot in her throat that the cables holding Squall in his contorted hell of hallucination were of Ultimecia's creation. In order to keep them in existence, and to control them, the evil witch had to be supplying them with energy directly. If Rinoa attacked the center point of those wires instead of Ultimecia…she could do it. She could hurt the witch, maybe even kill her.

So, too, would she kill Squall. He had no defense against such destructive forces. By fighting Ultimecia, Rinoa would be sentencing Squall to death, by the hand of the one he loved. 

She put her hand to her lips and shook her head fervently, tears painting her cheeks. He stared back, his eyes pleading. Did he know what she had to do? And if she did do it, was there any guarantee it would work in the first place? No…but one thing for certain: such an attack _would _kill Squall, no matter its effect on Ultimecia. 

Too painful. Too sad. There had to be another way. 

__

I don't care if I hurt Ultimecia or not. She toyed with Squall's ring—now warm in her hand—and meandered a few steps in the direction of the terrible spectacle she beheld. Ultimecia noted her presence, but did not seem concerned by it. _I just want you to stop hurting. I never want you to hurt, Squall, and never…never like this! It would be better…wouldn't it?_

'Squall, don't! I'm a sorceress.'

'I don't care.'

'SeeD will come kill me. And the leader of SeeD is you, Squall…"

'That's enough! I'd never do anything like that.'

'I'll be here…'

A soft light came to her eyes. Her tears turned to watery crystals as she stared. She felt wings at her back, and the answer in her heart. Yes, that was it. The only way.

Slowly, she let go of the ring. 

Far away, Squall smiled weakly and lowered his gaze to the darkness.

__

I promise.

"_Ultimecia!"_

The sorceress sneered in irritation as a massive blast of sheer force tore uselessly at her impenetrable shield. The fool girl was trying to stop the sorceress from hurting her beloved. In response, Ultimecia decided to twist the knife deeper. Another wire was added. It passed through the broken SeeD's knee, shattering bone and grinding against the broken shards, turning his leg at a sickeningly unnatural angle. He made no sound, but his agony radiated from him in waves. Too bad, that he could not faint from pain in this unearthly place. There was no such thing as too much pain.

Pain… _Pain! _

The heat was almost unbearable, but Squall absorbed it with relish, basking in the deadly power of Rinoa's attack. It was the first wave of true relief he had felt since this torture had begun, and now the prospect of death by love's gentle blade was indeed welcome. As Rinoa's unhindered magic coursed through him, he felt Ultimecia's power over him weaken. Elated in this final freedom, his body stretched, heedless of the wires, which were snapping all around him into glittery showers. 

Squall's eyes closed as the fatal rush of Rinoa's energy found its way into his mind, where it expanded, then plunged, sharp and true, into his heart. For a moment, all he knew was the heat—there was no pain—and he existed as energy, formless. His body had become a shell that shivered and glowed like a dying star. The power inundated him, became a part of him. Inside of him, it focused condensed, and finally, mercifully exploded. 

The star went nova. Within his heart became a storm. 

With a shriek of _pain, _Ultimecia retracted her mind like a hand that had touched a hot stove. Before her eyes, the cables that held up her captive began to thin, weaken and snap one by one, vanishing into thin beams of light or shattering into sparkling fragments that fell like magical confetti to the floor.

The blackness was gone. She was back on her pedestal. The throne room surrounded them. Not seconds had passed since she had conjured her endless torture chamber.

Another sting of pain, and more of the wires gave way, bursting into shimmering sparks or simply disappearing as she lost her control over each one. A third shock to the network, this one ten times the power of the other blasts, and she was forced to release it completely. With it, her SeeD captive.

Squall dropped twenty feet to the stone floor, a broken, bloody mess of pain and exhaustion. 

But still alive.

Innovative, Ultimecia noted, silently. The girl must have struck the edges of the magical cables to weaken them, and by doing so had avoided killing the boy. She'd also lost her only chance to deal Ultimecia a heavy blow. The witch smiled to herself. Rinoa's unwillingness to sacrifice him had doomed them all.

Freed from Ultimecia's influence, Squall regained consciousness, only to lose it again after a brief, delirious glance about him.

The girl was rushing to him, calling his name.

Ultimecia would not allow her the privilege. With a violent swipe of her hand, she forced Rinoa backward, sending her reeling into the wall beside the entrance to the room. A blue shield took the brunt of her impact, saving her from any serious injury and gouging a dusty crater in the stone structure of the castle. 

__

Wait, she prodded herself all of a sudden. _She is a sorceress. Yes. Useful…I will tolerate it._

So the little bitch could play games. Fine. So could Ultimecia. But the others, they were not an issue. Only Squall—she _had _to keep him alive—and this child-sorceress Rinoa were difficulties. So frustrating that she could not simply smite them all where they stood and be done with it! But before she resulted to wasting her energies—for she would need everything she had to complete her task once full control of her world had been achieved—she had one more card left to play. 

The old-fashioned ace up one's sleeve. If it worked, then why scorn the practice?

Squall's mind whirled, grasping at the string of Rinoa's startled scream and using it to pull himself out of unconsciousness. He opened his eyes halfway and feebly tilted his pounding head in the direction of the sound. He saw her get up stiffly from the floor and brush the rough scrapes on her arms free of debris and dust.

He closed his eyes again and trembled, not in fear or pain, but sheer anger. His throat choked a hoarse, cracked voice, lips formed words with no breath. "…_Damn _you." _Let me get up, let me survive. I'll kill Ultimecia. I'll kill her! _He spat blood, along with a broken piece of molar onto the hard floor. He coughed, trying to move. Pure rage prompted him to try to rise, but ultimately his efforts failed, after two attempts at pushing himself up on his one good arm. His soul smoldered in hatred, willing him to get up, to fight, to kill. His body would not obey.

He heard four pairs of feet galloping toward him. He was oddly surprised. He'd almost forgotten about the others. They were still here? Still alive? No…all but Selphie. Damn Ultimecia. 

The first voice he heard was Quistis. "He's still alive! Help me!" 

Then Zell: "Geez, he can survive anything, can't he? Er, knock on wood, I mean…"

Squall somehow noted Ultimecia was not stopping them. He knew she would let them help him. For whatever sadist practice the sorceress had in mind for him, she evidently needed him alive. Otherwise, they would all be dead now.

As his allies crouched beside him, Squall quivered here and there; gingerly testing his muscles, trying to determine what was still in tact and what was in pieces. To his astonishment, the leg that had been snapped in Ultimecia's darkness was not broken. Nor was his throat cut. Perhaps all of it had been an illusion. Still, the wires that had held him in the air had been real enough, he tasted blood, and he recalled having spit out a broken tooth. In any case, he could hardly move for the pain that still lanced his body. He twitched slightly.

At least the visions were gone.

Oh, but they would haunt him, if he survived this. Of _that_ there was no doubt in his mind. For now he was numb to them, could not have called up the horrible scenes if he'd wanted to, but they would never leave him.

Prattle filled his ears. "Is he awake?"

"Hey man, you conscious?"

"He's moving—"

"Naw, look, I saw his eyes open!"

"What about the…uh…"

"She's gone. Who cares? Can you help 'im, instructor?"

"Actually…"

"Wait." Another voice, clear light in the muddle of chatter. "Please, let me…"

His mind was in shambles. He didn't want to be touched, and felt he might have choked if someone had tried to. But if _Rinoa _could help him, if it was just her, and no one else… 

"I can heal him, completely. I've…I've done it before. I know what she's done to him."

A gentle pressure rested on his shoulder, the one that had first been speared by Ultimecia's magic. Squall shivered, so relieved, so happy that the dreams had indeed been illusions. He could _feel _her fingers run along his sleeve, the care she took in taking hold of his torn hand and clasping it between her palms. He knew this was real. It had to be. 

"Squall? Can you hear me?"

He had to answer, somehow. _Have to get up. Have to move… So tired._

"Please…wake up, _please._" Her touch strayed again to his arm, toyed briefly with the torn leather of his jacket sleeve. He felt her jump when her fingers touched hot blood. His eyes opened and he did his best to focus on her.

__

'If you wouldn't look away…if you just kept your eyes on me.'

Though it sent vicious shards of quicksilver shooting up his arm, he squeezed her hand tightly, desperate for a way to answer her that didn't involve words—such needless words… 

__

'Help me… If you can. If you want to.'

His hand began to tingle. The alien sensation of Rinoa's healing magic filled his blood. He rested his head on the cold ground again, but kept his eyelids parted. The pain in his hand was fading quickly, but he knew that to rid him of every wound, every rip in his flesh and every torn muscle, would take—relative—time. He only hoped Ultimecia would see fit to give Rinoa the opportunity to use it. He believed she would. The sorceress had seemed so acutely intent on keeping him alive and awake, he could only guess that his physical condition was indeed of some use to her. Why the witch, in all her terrible power, hadn't healed him herself, was curious. Perhaps she felt it beneath her…?

Meanwhile, a fruitless war against the sorceress raged throughout the generations.

He eventually stopped thinking about it. He even forgot about where he was, and who was with him, why he was here. He only remembered that he had been in pain, and that slowly, all that pain was going away. He tried, but could not keep his eyes open. They drifted shut over a period of minutes, hours, days—it didn't matter anymore. Soon the only thing he was aware of was how this bizarre and gentle sensation moved from one part of him to another, taking away the pain wherever it touched him. 

He couldn't sleep, though dreams plagued his mind.

__

'When I couldn't run any more, I screamed, Squall, where are you!_'_

'It was a scary dream.'

'Maybe some day, I could become like a lion, too.'

It wasn't until the majority of his agony had left him that he was able to rouse himself enough to stare at the one who had spent so long mending his broken body. Still the dream echoed.

__

'If you come here, you'll find me.'

'Your hands are cold…'

Squall's mind slowly began to focus itself. Somehow, he'd rolled onto his back without having been aware of it. He saw no sign of the others. He imagined they must be somewhere nearby, perhaps guarding he and Rinoa.

__

'I know what I want, and what I have to do...'

He could not hear or sense Ultimecia. Was the sorceress still here?

__

'Rinoa, call my name!'

One was. She was still by his side. Her hand was pressed firmly against his stomach, where the pain of a particularly vicious wound from one of the thicker wires was gradually dwindling, along with the distant whispers of his dreams. He watched her for a while in silence. She looked exhausted, more concentrated than he had ever seen her. She was so intent on her work, she didn't notice he was looking at her. 

When the pain in his gut had all but gone, Squall dared to attempt a question. "…Where is everyone?" The voice sounded as if it had come from the throat of a dead man.

Despite that she had seemed unaware of his conscious audience, there was little if any surprise in her eyes as they rushed to fix upon his weary vigil. "Over there," she whispered shakily, sounding exhausted. Her voice carried hardly any emotion beyond an echo of terror and obvious fatigue. "Talking about what to do next."

"Ult..t…Ultimecia?"

Her head swayed grimly. She took her hand from him, set it in her lap, and turned only her head to face him. "Disappeared."

Squall's eyes flit gently from her face to the hands she had rested in her lap. Blood covered her hands. His own. He took a mental inventory. All pain in every limb, every wound, was gone, save for the dull ache of fatigue and the sting of a few extra scrapes and bruises. Ever so carefully, he rolled to the side, planted his hands against the cold rock, and pushed himself up to a crouch. This action alone set his head spinning. For a moment, he threatened to topple over, too busy fighting the dark spots in his vision to expend any energy on keeping himself upright. He caught himself, though, refusing to fall in such indignity. Breathing heavily from the exertion of simply getting up, he rested, giving himself time to catch his breath and reorient himself. He covered his face and, still panting a little, spoke past his fingers, his voice raspy and forced. "No… She was just waiting for you to finish healing me. She'll…come back…she'll try to take me again."

"She can try." Rinoa's answer was curt and non-negotiable.

At first, Squall said nothing in response. What more was there to say? Oh yes. "Hey…thanks."

"For what?"

Haltingly, as though unconvinced of what he would find, Squall brought his hand away from his face, only to stare at it blankly, trapped in the memory of the horror. The glove was still pierced; jagged holes marred the back and palm, but not a mark desecrated the flesh beneath. Squall marveled at the bizarre fact that it was over. For now, at least. Now…

Again abstaining from speech, he nodded at her bloodied hands, regarding her impassively from the corners of his eyes. Then his interest returned to his torn glove. Distracted as he was, Squall did not see the blue sorceress shake her tears away.

"Oh… You're welcome, Squall." 

This bought his attention. She only addressed him by name when she _needed _him to pay attention; he'd learned that much about her, at least. What he saw in her eyes now both puzzled him and moved him. A chill determination had cleaned her face of uncertainty. It was an emotion that seemed to grow stronger when she looked at him. She was still afraid, that was obvious, but something had changed. Something…

"I think I understand, now."

Squall shook himself out of his clouded thoughts. "Understand what?"

"Ultimecia. I think I know why she hasn't taken us on, herself."

"Why's that?"

"Because…" Her mood darkened, and she stood up slowly to explain, hiding her hands behind her. "She's…Squall, did you _look _at her? She's grey and thin like an old woman, but she's _not _old. No one else can hurt her except…except us. She has no reason to waste energy by killing the others, because she needs all she's got_._ She shouldn't be able to do what she's done with time, so time's messed with _her. _Her own spells are killing her. She hasn't taken total control _yet. _She's still too busy fighting SeeD trans-dimensionally. I think she's very _weak_. She needs every ounce of her strength just to maintain what she already has. If she doesn't have to waste it on us, she won't. She can't afford to."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying, for her, we couldn't have picked a worse time to pop up. If we can distract her enough, even if we don't defeat her…maybe we can force her to use up what she has left, and then SeeD _will _be able to fight her."

"Maybe…" Squall started to stand, but his knees buckled, and Rinoa rushed forward to keep him from falling face-first into the ground. Embarrassed, but not having the luxury to dwell on it, he accepted her help and allowed her to take some of his weight. She was surprisingly strong. With her help, he stumbled over to the wall where Quistis, Zell and Irvine had been absorbed in an argument. One that ended the moment they saw Squall up on his feet (in a manner of speaking). There was a reverent silence as their leader joined them. Quistis helped Rinoa to guide him to a notch in the stone, against which he leaned gratefully before pointedly telling them both to let him be. It was an order no one protested; it was well known that Squall would despise the idea of other people seeing him too weak to stand on his own. In this case, he was allowed this small reclamation of his dignity.

Squall could guess what was going through their minds, simply by the _looks _that he was doing his best to avoid meeting. They'd seen him tortured—how little they knew!—and had expected him to die. Now he stood with them, weak and bloodied, his clothes torn where the wires had speared him, but he was uninjured. 

How had the pain affected him? Was he still sane? Could he go on? Could he still fight? And pity. He would _not _tolerate pity. Thus he decided to put an end to their misconceptions there and then. "Report. What have you come up with?"

Zell, ready to burst in his silence, planted his hand on his hip and snapped his fingers in emphasis of his words. "Diddly-_squat,_ that's what."

The commander's eyes narrowed to razor-blue slits. His voice, though still breathless, adopted a sharpness that mirrored that of his gaze. "_Not _good enough. I want solutions, and 'we can't do it' doesn't fall into that category. I've had enough of this. She's shown us what she can do with a fraction of her real strength. I think it's time we made a power play of our own."

"You mean the GFs," Quistis translated smoothly. 

"Exactly."

"But we thought about that, man," Zell interjected. "_You've _tried calling them here. It's exhausting! Using GFs on _her? _No way. It'd kill us."

"I know, I know. It might tear our minds apart, but it could be enough to get to her, if what I'm thinking is right." Squall tossed sweat-weighted hair from his face, waited out the dizziness that followed the sharp movement, then continued his explanation. "I don't know how long it'll be before Ultimecia comes back, but when she does, I wanna be ready. I think this is the one thing she _isn't _expecting us to do. On my signal, I want all of you to call to _every single _Guardian you've got."

"Say what?! Are you _crazy?!_"

"I mean it. That's all we're going to concentrate on, and that includes me."

At this, Rinoa was quick to protest. "Squall, not in your condition—"

"My 'condition' won't matter very much if we're all dead."

Reluctantly, she retracted her argument. 

Zell wasn't so quickly convinced. "What if she's watching us right now? She'll know our moves before we make 'em. What if it doesn't work?"

"It's the best chance we've got, unless you have a better idea."

"No, but—"

"Then on my signal, everything we've got."

"But it's _suicide, _man!"

Squall's patience snapped. "That's an _order!_" There was silence. Squall looked around at each face, acutely aware that he was very likely ordering them all to their deaths. This fact ultimately reached him, and his heartless scowl faded into one of grim understanding. "All right… Forget the order. This isn't just a mission anymore. It's an act of desperation. I said that to Rinoa, myself. But I'm…_asking _all of you, _please…_ Rinoa believes that Ultimecia hasn't killed us because she's already using all her power to maintain this time compression thing, and fight off SeeD at the same time. We're probably three of the most powerful SeeDs—"

"Left _alive._" Irvine had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the disagreement. He leaned against the wall adjacent to Squall, head bowed slightly, eyes obscured by the rim of his hat. This wouldn't have been so unusual if it wasn't for his slouched shoulders, bent knees, and arms hanging limply at his sides. It wasn't his normal melodramatic 'sharpshooter' display.

For once, no one had noticed him. And for once, he hadn't seemed to care.

Squall only acknowledged him. "Right. Selphie's sacrifice shouldn't be forgotten. The five of us are the only ones who have reached Ultimecia herself. We may not be able to destroy her on our own, but we can distract her."

"How?" 

"By throwing everything we have right in her face," he repeated in answer to Zell's skepticism. "I wanna see how well she can stand up to a _dozen _Guardians. We owe our success up to this point to them. Now they're here to help us win. I don't think…I don't think we've come this far just to be destroyed by our own protectors."

"I suggest we try to speak with them," Quistis offered. "Let them know what we're planning." There was mutual assent from all present—save Irvine, who acted like he hadn't heard her at all.

"At least _one _of us should keep his head together." Zell shot a worried look at Squall, but found no argument in his friend's expression, and so continued, "If all the rest of us drive ourselves nuts with a hundred GFs in our heads at the same time, _somebody's _gotta stay sane enough to snap everyone else back into reality."

Squall considered this. Perhaps it would take just that much _more _to draw Ultimecia's concentration away from her goal. But if Zell was right, and they all went down under the sheer strain of evoking the powers of _all _their Guardian Forces at once, they'd be just as dead. _When Galbadia Garden attacked, we didn't return push with shove, and we paid for it. I can't make the same mistake twice. _

_But what if…?_

"Rinoa," he said after a breath and a heartbeat, "I want you to hold off."

"I can't," she returned firmly. "I won't back out just because you don't want me in danger. I'm in this as much as the rest of you."

Squall had been expecting this argument, and reacted with a bitter smile. "I'm not asking you to back off. In fact, what I want you to do is a lot more dangerous."

Her defiance faded into apprehension. "What's that?"

"When Ultimecia comes back…I need _you _to confront her. Hold her attention until the Guardians can get here, and I need _you _to take everything she throws back at us."

Quistis's eyebrows shot up. "Squall, are you certain she can do that?"

"She'll have to." He did not look at his instructor. Silent understanding passed between his stare and Rinoa's. They both knew what the others didn't, knew what had happened in that timeless void Ultimecia had created. They had both seen that one sorceress could not overpower another, no matter her experience or her strength. Perhaps it had been an illusion, but the reality of Rinoa's power, Squall believed, was true. If anyone could protect them from Ultimecia, it was Rinoa. 

"Okay," Rinoa agreed quietly. "I'll do it."

"Errrmm…Squall?"

"What is it, Zell?"

"Uh…not to go looking for problems, but…what if she _doesn't _come back?"

This possibility hadn't entered Squall's mind until now. But he dismissed it quickly. "She'll come back."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because she'll come back for me." The looks of puzzlement were no surprise. "She _wants _me, somehow. I can't explain why. I just know she does. That's why she didn't kill me. There's something I've got that she thinks she needs. I wish I could understand it, too."

"She sounded like she had some sorta personal vendetta with you, the way she was talkin'."

Squall nodded seriously. "Maybe she does."


	2. Who Leads the Leader

2

Who Leads the Leader

--

__

"…Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way…."

--

They didn't have to wait long. 

Squall's ordeal, paired with loss of blood, had left him with little strength. He insisted he was fine, and, thanks to the wonders of healing magic, walked steadily again. He had retrieved his weapon from where it had fallen, but even as he tested the gunblade's balance with smooth ease born of a decade's practice and sliced the air with the same wicked precision, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was not going to survive this battle if he had to fight in his weakened state. Along with fatigue, there was death in his eyes, and everyone saw it. He expected to die. But he expected everyone else to live. The question that was hanging unspoken in the air was: what did Squall have in mind? His orders were obvious, and so were the consequences. 

__

So what the hell are we gonna do if he goes an' gets himself killed?

Zell had been frustrated with Squall's plan of action since the moment it had been offered, and still, he wasn't fully satisfied with it. It wasn't that he didn't trust Squall's judgement. He didn't, however, consider himself, or anyone else, for that manner, in any way expendable. Why just give one's life up when there could be a better way? 

__

What kinda dumbass just walks into kingdom come like that? 

There was no time for Zell to voice his protests; only moments after he had formulated an argument for Squall, Ultimecia, looking frustrated and volatile, appeared above them.

__

Is it just my imagination, or does she look a whole lot meaner _this time? _Zell stood up slowly from where he'd been sitting against the wall, waiting in fidgety silence for something to happen. He barely took the time to glance at everyone else. Squall had stopped his tireless practicing. Rinoa didn't bother to look at the reason for the interruption. Irvine, seeming subdued and fatigued as he had since Selphie's death and disappearance, toyed with the trigger of his weapon. Quistis, who had been trying to get a word out of the despairing sharpshooter, ceased her efforts. No one said a word. 

Zell fumed. It was all so damn awkward. Why didn't they just attack? Why couldn't Ultimecia get her ugly face down there with them and fight like a…witch?

Another moment of uncalled-for silence, and Zell simply couldn't stand it any longer. Livid, he stomped forward two paces, gesturing rudely at Ultimecia's contemplative figure. "Yo, Psycho-sorceress! Get your butt down here and fight, 'stead of sittin' up there all high and mighty!" He smiled when he got a reaction: a sideways, contempt-filled leer of disgust. "Wuss woman," he egged her on, starting to hop back and forth from one foot to the other, striking at the air as though he could knock her to the floor from where he stood. "Witch Bitch! Ult-i-meee-cia's a fat-assed LOSER!!"

Meanwhile, Squall fought the inclination to shut Zell up with a spell of silence (a trick Quistis had used on him once or twice). He cringed inwardly at the rowdy SeeD's taunting. _Zell, that won't get you anywhere. Just be patient. I want to know what she's going to say first._ But he couldn't voice such opinions now. No time. Time…

Ultimecia was smiling, an eerie, stomach-churning sight on her painted face. "SeeD has been destroyed," she announced, spreading her arms to her audience. "Your Gardens are as ashes. Your comrades are kold on the field of battle. Pity that you left them. They might have stood a chance, had you not abandoned them—"

Her anecdote was cut short by Zell's rage- and grief-filled cry. He stood in place, glaring upward at the witch, his fists so tight his knuckles grew white, but he ignored the pain he was causing himself. He began to tremble all over, desperate to battle this hated enemy, but unable to get to her to strike a single blow. And he could do nothing—not until Squall indicated otherwise.

He felt someone's hand on his shoulder, and wrenched his head around to stare at whoever had dared to touch him.

His shock almost overcame his anger when he saw Squall standing just behind him.

"Don't grieve yet," the squad leader murmured quietly, fixing Zell with a stern stare that held in it not only authority, but also—odd to see in Squall's face—understanding. "It's how she weakens her enemies. She attacks your resolve and tries to drive you into despair. If you give in to it, you've already lost. …There's a good chance she could be lying."

Zell swallowed to force down his rush of fury, but his trembling lessened and his fists went down. He stood a little straighter, felt a little better. He nodded slightly.

Squall left him and stepped forward to address the witch. She was eyeing him keenly, seeming to await his impending words. 

He couldn't help himself. He had been dying to ask the question: "What do you want from me, damn you!" His arm slashed the air in a sharp, violent motion, which was a mistake; he had to hide the short rush of dizziness the aggravated gesture caused.

His words only served to expand that awful grin of Ultimecia's. "So perfect, that I should go looking for you throughout the centuries, and you came to me yourself. Squall, it is not I who will be damned, but you. It is _you _whom I have searched for, you which history once claimed would lead the battle to fight me. But, alas, you are long dead in the age in which I once lived. But here, in this reality of realities, the moth flutters headlong into the flame! So it shall be. Hell will be yours, child, and your entire civilization will have the privilege of listening to you scream!" She spread her wings, took a delicate step off her high-rise, and stood suspended in the air. Gradually, as though supported by an invisible elevator, she descended to the floor, speaking still as she went. "For you are the only one, Squall—the one strong enough for this use! With you, my transformation will be inevitable. _Leonhart._" She began to walk toward him, almost casually, a sickeningly mischievous look in her calculating eyes, which, as she came closer, Squall could see were gold-rimmed hazel, pupils shaped as spades, a tattoo on her soul. 

Squall had readied his weapon to defend himself if needbe, though he had the distinct impression Ultimecia had no intention of directly attacking them. The mention of his last name confused him. "What?" Belatedly, he realized that no one else in the open chamber was moving save for himself and Ultimecia. But they were not trapped—for there was no hint of a struggle in their faces—rather… _Ultimecia…has frozen time?_

"Yes, I see you komprehend your situation, SeeD." Ultimecia had been watching him, had seen his thoughts in his eyes. "There is no help in comrades who cannot hear your cries for mercy."

"Hell if I will," he growled in return, taking a step back from her as she approached him, then another, gunblade ready to strike the second she came within range. "I don't care about your stupid time-warp."

She continued to advance on him. He continued to retreat.

"Look at you," the sorceress spoke with pity, "beast though you are, you will back into a corner, hissing like a frightened cat. Poor, foolish boy, your instincts betray you!"

Squall stopped. His back had hit a wall that shouldn't have been there. He did not look behind him, did not take his eyes off of Ultimecia for a second, but stood his ground. He had a hunch…

Ultimecia leveled her right hand at him, fingers splayed out as if ready to catch something thrown to her, and stopped, just out of reach of his weapon.

Squall's eyes narrowed. _Ultimecia, that's the first big mistake you've made._

"You'll never get a better shot," he said quietly, lowering his weapon. He made a vague sweep with his left hand. "I'll ask again: what do you want from me? You wouldn't be going to this much trouble if you didn't want something." _Get her closer. She wouldn't have stopped if I couldn't hurt her._

"Of all fools, you surprise me the most with your density!" In frustration, the witch curled her extended claws, seeming more than ready to sink them into his flesh. "I offer you a deal I suspect you will not comply with."

"What's that?"

"_You,_" she hissed, "for _them._"

"Why didn't you just kill them, Ultimecia? You have the power."

"I will—one way, or the other! Konsider your answer carefully, child. Your small friend is already mine. But your life force, Squall—your blood, and I will spare them the agonies they deserve! I will cast them to oblivion, rather than keep them."

"Curing the disease by killing the patient," Squall spat back. "No deal."

Ultimecia's smile twisted into a cockeyed smirk. A strange wind blew about the time-bereft world. "Your acquiescence is of no importance. Your life force I need—and your blood I will have!"

Squall began to tremble, a draining sensation fading into his body like a specter. He fought to breathe, fought to think, leering at Ultimecia from behind the blade of his weapon which he'd hefted again to ward off the spell. The motion was futile. 

She was staring back at him, smiling. "And for this final act, you will bow before me, the first of all, leading your people into _my _power!"

He struggled for command of his body, fought the unseen force that was pulling him down. He was fighting with her strength. But it was a different kind of power-struggle. When she had strung him up, it had been a physical assault, and then one of the mind. She had controlled his body, tortured his mind. But, he remembered, when she had reached for his _soul, _he had forced her away.

Now he was fighting her again in much the same way. It was not his body that he struggled with, but his will. He fought the intense inclination to fall to his knees before this woman, fought a terrible desire to submit to her power, fought the awe and the fear that had reached inside of him and wrapped around his heart. He breathed a weak moan that caught in his throat. His blade touched the ground. 

__

She's…strong. But she can't…not me! 

Squall shivered at a queer feeling, a tickle at the back of his neck that stretched out in a smooth embrace around his ribs, his spirit.

__

My will to fight her. This revelation sparked a need to struggle, fueled by fear, strengthened further by his memory of Ultimecia's futile attempts to enter his heart, earlier. But Ultimecia was stronger than she had been before. Her power held him in a near-crouch. Ropes akin to the wires that had once skewered him fell across his shoulders and anchored him to the ground, dozens of thin strands with the strength of steel cables wrapped around him and bound him to the floor.

Squall's breath quavered. He had never felt so isolated as he did now. There was no one to help him. He was already weak, and so tired. The constricting tethers felt warm in their tightening entrapment. His head tilted back so his eyes could see the sorceress, the fear breaching his scowl and transforming it into a numbed look of mild terror. His eyes quivered as he watched Ultimecia smile. He thought of her black wings, thought of how they would feel wrapped around him in a hateful embrace. The torture they promised was almost inviting to him, now. It would be so easy to fall to his knees in this state, in this place of hopelessness, worship this encompassing power he felt so trapped by. It would be so much easier, to fall to fear and die in torture, than it would be to continue this charade of courage, standing alone with nothing but his words and the cold truth to defend himself with. If he fell now, the demons of death that were waiting at Ultimecia's beck would descend on him, tear him to pieces, and his blood on their fangs would be the first of millions of souls. But at least it would be over. At least that way, he wouldn't be so tired, anymore…

__

'Never will you fear death, for it shall claim you!'

A knot grew like a knife in his throat. The black feathers threatened to envelop him. She was close to him now. Very close… 

__

Rinoa. The name entered his mind of its own accord, a mere whisper in this chaos of fear. But as death neared, the whisper grew to a shout, and the image of the black became obscured by white, white wings that shone of hope. _Remember Rinoa…I'm not alone!_

Steel flashed. Ultimecia hissed in startled pain and stepped back again, a shallow cut where the gunblade had grazed her hand staining her dark claws with her own blood.

The sword clattered to the ground, though Squall still held fast to it. His head bowed and he crouched, panting. She was here. He could see the girl in blue, in his mind's eye. She was still trapped in time, but she was watching him. Longing for those white feathers to surround him, he focused on them, feeling his soul rise as the wings lifted his heart from his helpless reverie, the memory of love striking steel in his faltering will. _Rinoa…you're with me… _His face hardened, the dream of subservience shattered in his vision. _I'm on my own… _But not helpless. Not forgotten. Rinoa was _there…_all he had to do was give her the means to break Ultimecia's spell. 

He tested the strength of the restraints that held him down. Weakness, he remembered, was the illusion that Ultimecia played upon the most. _If I believe I'm stronger, I can be…_

Only one way to find out.

_Bravado. _Squall almost smirked. Who would have thought it would ever have a practical use?

"You're going to have to do better than that," snarled the leader of SeeD as he began to rise. He felt the force around him begin to falter as his resolve strengthened. "I can feel your desperation, Ultimecia." He raised his head, fought the pressure on his soul so he could face the witch. "If you were as powerful as you make yourself out to be, you would have killed us all a long time ago. It's obvious you're trying so hard just to stay in control…" He swallowed thickly, licking dry lips and pulling heavy breaths to speak. "You've fought SeeD, and you barely won. Now you want me…because I started it all. I'm the one…who led the fight." He saw her rage intensify. It became easier to stand. Black energy crackled around him in small bursts as the tethers melted away. He wasn't sure if he actually saw the dark sparks, or if he simply sensed it, but he did know that he was creating a wall of defiance that not even Ultimecia's power could penetrate. It was not easy—he had to fight simply to stand halfway—but it was working, slowly. He seemed to be hitting a nerve. She was letting up. He pressed on, struggling for a grip on logic, enough to find himself reasons to taunt her.

"You're still afraid…now more than you ever were. Soon, Rinoa will be able to break through, and you'll have to deal with all of us again. When that happens, you won't have such an easy time subduing us. Your spell on me can't last forever." He fought with muscles that felt constructed of lead and managed to raise the gunblade into a ready position once more. "Is that what makes me different? That power you want so bad from me, it's the same thing that keeps you from taking over my mind, isn't it?"

"You are a _man!_" the witch screeched, backing away two paces and striking at him with a clawed hand. She missed. "You have no power against a sorceress! You exist to give your strength! You cannot use it!"

"But I can keep you out with the strength. That's what sets me apart from Seifer. You didn't want him, you _used _him. Used him to try and get to _me…_"

"Fool child!"

A beam of red light shot from the sorceress' claws, striking Squall in the shoulder, piercing through to the other side. He grunted in pain, staggered back a pace, but did not fall. "You won't kill me, Ultimecia. You _need _me. You need my life force to complete your dream. That's what you were saying, wasn't it?" Reality was becoming clearer to him by the moment. The more he spoke, the easier it became to believe. "You miscalculated how much it would take out of you to work your spells to go back in time. You grew weaker and weaker, and when the war finally happened, SeeD became too much, and you almost lost. After all…the effort it took to possess Adel, Edea, and Rinoa was too much. You don't have the power to keep _yourself _alive. Am I right?" He felt liquid warmth begin to trail down his injured arm, but the heat only served to prove to him that he was alive, his heart beating, his strength returning. "That's why you're so desperate. That's why you _had _to find me. Not to rid yourself of SeeD's leader…you want me so you can survive off my life force." He forced a smile of his own at her mute rage. "I'm the only one, for some reason. It just happens that I'm stronger than any other soul you could find to devour." 

To Ultimecia's shock, Squall began to laugh, quietly, reveling in some joke only he understood.

"I'm not the fool. Don't you get it? You're the one who's destroyed yourself. I would have been just another SeeD. But in your history, I'm the one who defeats you. So you set out to kill me, and to find Ellone, so that I wouldn't be a problem, and you could travel further back in time to use Adel. Instead you found out that your own spells were killing you." His amusement faded. 

Ultimecia's eyes quivered. She seemed frozen, unsure of what to do. 

Squall pressed his advantage, playing on her hesitation. "Even in the beginning, you focused so much on finding me, you were _clumsy_, and altered events in the past so that you put _me _in the middle of everything, and it snowballed on you. Because of your intervention to find Ellone and I, you made it so that _I _was the one that fought you in Deling City, came back to the Garden and became its leading officer. I led the war against you, instead of someone else. You pit Seifer against me to lure me to you, so you could kill me. You almost got away with it, except I escaped. After that, you realized you didn't have the power to keep Edea from forcing you out of her mind. That's when you decided you needed an alternate source of power. You were too weak to handle Edea anymore. So you took Rinoa, you used her to get to Adel, and you brought me right to your front doorstep." 

Squall's limbs felt lighter now, and he took a solid breath, feeling his body gradually return to his command, like regaining circulation in a limb that had fallen asleep. "In a way," He tilted his head to the side for a brief moment, "I have you to thank. You put the one person who could make me stronger into my life. Before I met her, you would've had me. I wouldn't have had the strength to fight you. I'd be too lost in despair and self-torment to care. If you were telling the truth, now that you're finished fighting SeeD, you don't have your attention divided, and you should have more than enough power to subdue me. You _can't. _Wanna know why? Because after the hell you've put me through, after I nearly lost Rinoa, after _I _saved her from you, after I began to feel this way…" He shook his head angrily, flinging sweat from his face, though his true intention was to unveil the scar on his forehead. His hair out of his eyes, he straightened his stance, faced Ultimecia with ice-colored fire, crowned by the scar of experience that seemed alight with the same bloody glow smoldering in his eyes. "…I've become too strong for you to dominate." 

Squall saw fear kindle in the sorceress' blazing stare, and kept up relentlessly, using the truth against her. He took an unsteady step forward. 

"Depending on each other, trusting each other…it gives us something to fight for. It gives us the will to survive. It's given me the strength to resist you. Sucks for you," he added derisively, his tone becoming much sharper, even scolding. "All this work to change history in your favor, and the books will still record that _I _was the one to defeat you. But what they'll leave out," he murmured in cruel triumph, his blood turning cold as he took another step toward the witch, then another, "is what I'll never tell them. They'll leave out the reason I came to be where I am. _You _were the catalyst for my position! You botched your own grand plan by bringing your own killer to you. You made your own history come true. _You screwed up. _Now the only hope you have to survive is to kill me…" He tensed, feeling new strength course through him, the frozen time melt around him, and his weapon poised to fight. "…Because if you don't, you can be damned sure that I'm gonna kill you." He heard four voices behind him—one called his name, and the others waited for his command. His mind centered, and his call went out. It was answered silently to him, beasts of immortal power sounding a battle cry that rocked his brain with their resonance: the Guardians had been waiting to be summoned. They were coming. All of them.

Squall's eyes narrowed to slits, targeting Ultimecia for what he knew in his heart would be his final battle. Absolute Finality.

It was time for this fantasy to end. 

Ultimecia's painted face tightened in rage as she watched her spell crumble around her. That girl, damn her! How had she become so strong? The black-winged sorceress patiently folded her wings as Squall's puny entourage was reanimated. With a single, swift hand gesture, he had signaled all of them to surround her.

She smiled pleasantly as the foul sorceress in blue joined the broken circle. Ultimecia was not afraid. Not of Squall, the SeeDs or this irritating witch-girl. Here they were, ready to fight to their deaths—and so they would have their deaths, in due time—and she had only to terminate them. She was no longer harried throughout the centuries with SeeD's incessant gnats. Very well, then. She would fight. They would fall, one, then another. Which one first? The three fools that Squall and the girl had brought with them, of course. She would kill them now. No talk. No more ridiculous delays. After that, she would be free to deal with Squall and the black-haired wench. And _oh, _how she would deal with them…

Without so much as a glance around her, Ultimecia crossed her arms in a dark **X **against her chest, tilted her head backward. With a sudden, powerful thrust of her wings, her body feather-light to the air, she shot upward, out of the immediate reach of her would-be attackers. Another twist of her fluid body and strike of one clawed hand sent her three chosen targets sprawling.

Irvine landed at the base of the wall, bruised, winded, and dizzy, but alive. Some sort of shield—he'd seen it flicker into place just before Ultimecia had let loose her first attack—had protected him from the witch's blow, where any conventional magic would have proven useless. It looked like Rinoa was making good on her word. He picked his gun up from where it had fallen beside him, and stood steadily once more, resolutely staring up at Ultimecia, as did Zell and Quistis. They all looked on her with grim pride; they had their own sorceress on their side, and she wasn't going to make it easy to kill any of them. Not like she had Selphie.

Irvine remembered this and flipped his hat up out of his eyes to glare at Ultimecia head-on. His already sorrow-stricken face creased in new tension. Zell and Quistis stood by his sides, echoing his stance.

"Is that all you've got," Zell shouted to Ultimecia's infuriated eyes, "or is your battery a little _low, _Witch-Bitch? C'mon," he taunted, indicating his chin, "I got your _recharge _right here!"

If Zell had been expecting a sucker-punch, he got one.

Ultimecia screeched in rage. Lightning tore the air, ripped through the powerful shield that protected him, and struck him squarely in the chest, again sending him head over heels. Coughing and sputtering, Zell picked himself up (and what little dignity he had left about him), and turned around—to find that the full-scale war had finally begun.

_Where are they? _

This question repeated itself in Squall's mind as he stumbled, rolled away to avoid another bolt of white light, shot from Ultimecia's claws. And another. He flipped agilely from his back to his feet, but the third attack was too fast for him to avoid, and he ended up letting the broad side of his gunblade take the brunt of the strike, knocking him sideways. Though dizzy, he did not fall. 

Some part of him found the fact he was still standing strangely amusing—wasn't it a simple fire spell that had taken him to his knees five months ago, when Seifer had forever scarred his face? Now, he was strong enough to take a sorceress' blow, and keep his footing. 

_What experiences can do for people, _he thought absently, and sidestepped another white beam. Ultimecia rotated her attention between all five of her attackers, focusing on one, then another, but never striking all of them at once. She could have done so, and Squall knew this—her tactics up until now had been bizarrely simple and predictable. Squall suspected it wouldn't stay that way for too long.

But what to do? No one could reach her in the air—their spells were useless—and _where _were the Guardian Forces?

Zell danced out of the way of a shot of white. His head buzzed with the effort it had taken to call on all of his Guardians, making it difficult to think or react. He'd taken two blows from Ultimecia already. Still, he was game, but for what? The witch refused to come to the ground to fight. He felt annoyed—annoyed at Ultimecia's cowardice, and annoyed that he could do absolutely nothing about it. Except wait. 

Not something he was particularly good at.

That strange burning…it was getting into his hands, again. Like a vicious itch, it tormented Zell from beneath his steely gloves, made his hands sweat and his fingers ache. He wanted nothing more than to pummel Ultimecia with everything he had. When that opportunity presented itself (if it ever did), he had in mind a few choice maneuvers to finish her off with. Who was she calling worthless? He'd teach her a thing or two about SeeDs.

As it was, though, Ultimecia had them scrambling to keep out of her line of fire. Until the Guardians came, they had no weapon against her, and each time she scored a hit on one of them, the cost was greater, the pain more severe. Evidently, Rinoa was having trouble protecting them, even with her sorceress powers, and she was looking more and more fatigued with every passing moment. 

Zell managed to run safely to her while Ultimecia was busying herself trying to lance Quistis and Squall, the latter of which seemed to be faring none too well. Zell told himself they could handle themselves for a few seconds while he checked up on their shield-bearer. Rinoa barely noticed him until he was right next to her. 

"Yo, you okay?" Zell's comment came just in time to keep her from falling to her knees. He caught her in mid-sentence. "You don't look so hot."

"I'm fine," she lied, though she didn't try to keep him from supporting her.

"That's some major BS if I ever heard it. You've been hangin' around Squall too much. C'mon." 

With a stern frown, he grabbed her hand and pulled her behind a pillar, avoiding another blast from Ultimecia, which cracked the stone floor nearby. They crouched behind that pillar for a few seconds to shield themselves from the next barrage of white lances, before daring to speak again. 

"How much longer you gonna keep it up," Zell hissed, "before you fall on your face? I mean really."

Rinoa seemed about to fire back at him, but stayed herself and reluctantly answered the floor. "Not long. I'm sorry. I can't help it, I'm so _tired._"

"No kiddin'." He said it as if the information were news to him. "Well I got bad news for ya. The GFs are taking their damn time."

"Zell! Rinoa! Incoming!"

Bolting in opposite directions, Zell and Rinoa managed to get out of the way before Ultimecia's magic tore the pillar apart, sending heavy debris flying in all directions. Rinoa tripped on her second step, thought for certain when she heard the stone explode that she would be buried alive in moments. But someone seized her by the arm and hauled her clear of the falling pillar, hurling her fast to the ground to keep her from harm's path. She struck the floor hard, skidding painfully, and felt small pieces of stony debris bounce off the back of her head and shoulders. 

She knew without having seen that it had been Squall who'd thrown her to the floor. She also knew it was Squall who gently laid his hand on her scraped shoulder. She winced at the sting, but the touch alone asked the question: "Are you all right?" Words were needless. Rinoa pushed herself up, faced him only long enough to nod her thanks and reassurance, then found herself defending the entire group—all of whom had rushed to her aid—from a vicious assault of holy magic.

The roar of each explosion was deafening. Having caught all five of her opponents in one place, Ultimecia sought to obliterate them in one fell sweep. Rinoa could not afford to simply dampen the blows in this case. She had to repel them completely if she dared hope to save her friends. She had only to _think _to strengthen the shield around them, but _thinking _drained her. It was hard to think beyond the fear. Again she fell to her knees, holding up one hand as if her fingers alone would ward off Ultimecia's attacks.

She heard a scream, recognized it as Quistis's voice, and her hope gave way—Ultimecia had gotten through. They would all die…all except her. Ultimecia couldn't kill her.

She was roughly caught up and dragged to the side, and felt herself pressed tightly against another body. There was another scream of agony. She curled up into a ball, willing the chaos to leave her. She was being buried under bodies. The world, the whole world would suffer because _she _wasn't strong enough. The weight tightened around her, she felt warm blood spill onto her. It was not hers, and she knew it. She could hear the thousand screams of terror and pain again. They were dying, they were _all _dying…

The noise stopped, and with it her delirium. Her world stopped spinning, she found the courage to open her eyes. At first she saw only blackness, then her other senses started working again, as well. Her face was pressed into something soft; the restraining force around her was not the weight of dead bodies, but the strength of someone who was holding onto her in a grip so powerful it hurt. The smell of musk and sweat and blood registered. Moments later, the familiarity of those scents. A friend's voice identified their owner for her.

"Squall, man! Shit—_Squall!_" Was it Zell who had yelled? She wasn't quite sure.

A rip began to form in Rinoa's heart when she felt the arms that had embraced her start to weaken as the life drained away from them. Trembling, she lifted her face from Squall's shirt, searching desperately to find and meet his eyes. She found them, held them for a short time. Shock had rendered his stare numb, such that Rinoa could see nothing in it—only a hint of pain and a world of fear. She tore her stare from the terrible blankness on his face, and found the reason for his shock. 

Her shield had indeed failed. But it had not been Quistis' death scream she had heard. It had been a scream of terror. She realized too quickly what had happened: Ultimecia had shot at her, and Squall had grabbed hold of her, tucked her under the protection of his body, and taken five deadly white lances that had been meant for her. They had gone through him, but he had weakened them so that by the time they passed through his body and reached their true target, they could not have harmed her. 

The second scream of agony had not been that of any of her comrades—the scream had been Ultimecia's. The witch continued to rage even now.

__

"NO! No, you worthless _fool! _No, no, _no! _Not you! Not _you!_" The witch sounded ready to burst into tears.

The bleeding burns ran clean through Squall's body, bloody patches in his chest and stomach that left the fabric of his shirt stained and seared. It seemed the only vital thing the terrible lances had missed was his heart.

Rinoa felt her chest constrict as she looked into his eyes once more. Even her healing powers were not fast enough to fix this injury. She saw comprehension return to Squall's eyes, and felt his body relax, though he struggled to maintain his hold on her.

"Not you," Rinoa repeated Ultimecia's plea in a whisper. "Please…not you."

Squall smiled weakly. His body began to shake, and he bowed his head to brush his lips against her forehead. He pulled her closer, leaned on her until she was forced to support him. With the remaining strength he had left, he whispered in her ear.

"Trust me…don't leave my side. I'll be here…just remember…that."

"Squall… Squall no, wait, don't—"

He couldn't answer her. He had no ability to speak anymore, no power to live, no strength to breathe. He had already taken so much strain, and managed to function and fight regardless of how many times he had been brutalized and re-repaired. Now everything that supported his body was crumbling, and no amount of magical patching could keep him from internal collapse. 

Squall felt himself falling apart on the inside. Despite Rinoa's pleas, his muscles failed him, sending him keeling sideways onto the cold floor. She caught his head before it could hit; then he felt other pairs of hands help to ease him gently to the ground. _They're all here…still alive._

Some internal function in his mind warned him of the seconds, silently counted down to him just how many he had left, as though his body was a computer, one facing a total system failure. But at this point, that's all it was to him. His body, a machine, a construction, nothing more. 

Survival…what did it mean anymore? Time, life, existence…it all had a different equation in this place. His death would be of little consequence, perhaps even of some use. Ultimecia was screaming. Had he defeated her? No, not yet. He still had to…

_Fifteen _

There was no fear of oblivion in his mind or shuddering heart. Death could not stop him. Not here. Here, there was still a chance for life.

_Eleven_

He could see her, holding desperately onto his hand as his brain registered the last hint of feeling in his limbs. He could hear her weeping voice, a sad music to him as his vision began to blur. "Oh…_please. Please…_"

_Six_

A hope, a fear, a light in her eyes he could still see. He glanced for just a moment at all the others gathered around him. He could see only them. Ultimecia's cries faded into the background, leaving only his friends, and then, only Rinoa.

_Three_

His eyes remained on her for another instant, then he closed them, knowing that if he did not, he would not have the chance. He didn't want anyone to see the fire die. It could not die. It had to live on in their hearts, else his efforts would be futile.

The only vision that was left was a memory of space, eternity. A toneless, emotionless voice announced cold, truthful vengeance. The memory alone promised him victory, though the words meant nothing.

_Life-support – has – terminated._

The exhaustion released him, he settled down warmly to rest in a world of infinite light.

__

"So…what now?"

It seemed like a stupid question, but Zell could think of nothing else to say. He stood slowly, though he was shaking slightly in barely contained grief. The unthinkable had finally happened. Squall was dead. Ultimecia was still alive, screaming aloft in the sky above her throne.

"Zell…" 

He was surprised to hear someone say his name, even more surprised when he realized it was Rinoa who had spoken. "W'sup?" The word was in no way jovial, simply the first response that came to him.

Her answer was quiet, and oddly, untainted with sorrow, even as she continued to brush Squall's copper-brown hair back over his deaf ears. "I think it's up to you to decide." 

"Decide what?"

"What to do next," Quistis murmured blankly, still caught up in her own shock. "She's right. Believe it or not, Zell, after Squall, _you _are the highest-ranking SeeD here."

"S-say what…? Me—? Whoa, wait, that…that can't be right. Even over _you? _Instructor?"

The "instructor" shook her head sadly. "Not anymore, Zell…I'm not qualified to take his place, in this situation. You are. You're in charge, Zell." 

Zell suddenly found all eyes on him, and a creeping weight tightened around his chest. A one-sided, desperate inner dialogue bounced back and forth behind his quavering eyes. _Hell—is this how _Squall _felt all the time? What's up with this? I can't replace _him! No one _can replace him! It's _Squall, _man!_

Ultimecia gave him no chance to protest. Sinking as close to the ground as she ever had, only a few feet above the floor, she crossed her arms over her chest, bowing as though in respect of the dead. Her cracked voice was hardly respectful. But it was reverent. "I warned the fool what would happen if he refused me. Now…the power of his own heart shall be the instrument of your torture." She lifted her eyes to leer at her adversaries, tear-tainted irises blood red with rage. Black streamed down her cheeks, unholy tears.

Zell's hands began to itch again. The opportunity was too much to ignore. His chance to do something, an act that had little to do with the magic this sorceress was so impervious to. He didn't wait for the witch to finish her speech.

"Get _back!_" He warned his remaining entourage. He made a signal with his hand: move in when I give the signal. No more words, he rushed forward as Ultimecia was parting her lips to speak again. A roaring cry augmented his power as a fire-tinted aura built around him.

"Compress _THIS, _witch-bitch!" 

The glow burst into a ring of released energy as his fist struck the ground not fifteen feet from the startled sorceress. The built-up energy met the ground as well, converging on the point where Zell's strike had landed. 

The floor began to shake. Cracks formed in the tile beneath his fist, first a few small ones, then a single, black line wound its way across the floor. Moving almost too fast for the eye to follow, it raced and rumbled like a strand of rocky lightning underneath Sorceress Ultimecia, and the subsequent thunder split the ground in its wake. The break glowed with the same fierce, fiery-hot energy that had created it, and all at once the floor erupted in a blaze of flame, flying stone and searing heat, all originating from Zell's vengeful gouge in the earth. The blast reached out and grabbed Ultimecia, ignoring her magical shield completely, scorching her graceful wings and transforming the outermost black feathers into equally black tufts of smoke. As Zell and his friends behind him watched in awe, Ultimecia writhed momentarily in the flames, screeching like such a wounded crow before propelling herself higher with one powerful thrust of those increasingly frail-looking wings. Her flowing dress was torn and charred on the edges, the ends of her long, silver tresses blackened and frayed. 

For his efforts, Zell had to sidestep a vicious barrage of magic, backpedaling away, all the while shouting and whooping, "See, you can hurt 'er! _You can hurt 'er, you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT!" _

He turned to run for his life, though he knew Ultimecia's range was not limited to the edges of this throne room-turned-arena. He heard the witch screech something in a bizarre language, watched rather than heard Rinoa scream at Ultimecia as a chaotic cloud of black swept him up and pulled him into its center. There he hovered suspended and immobile, stretched out amidst a maelstrom of darkness. His chest suddenly constricted, his joints cracking painfully. He couldn't breathe—he felt like his body was being pulled apart one way, then crushed the other way in a monstrous hand. Pain such as he had never experienced tore at every nerve, but he couldn't scream, could not utter a sound for the crushing force around his lungs. _This is it, _he thought, teeth clenched, eyes shut against the pain. _She's gonna do to me what she did to Squall—oh, geez, I'm envying you about now, man! What would you do…?_

White bored through the blackness, banishing the pain and the constricting storm. Even through closed eyelids, Zell was momentarily blinded by the glare. He dropped abruptly to the floor, and lay there, too shocked, to terrorized to dare movement. He was sure that if he moved, his bones would crumble in his limbs. He stayed there, trembling. 

When he did open his eyes a few moments later, he found Quistis and Irvine standing over him. They were yelling something. Gradually, his sense returned, and with Quistis's help he managed to stand and turn around, still shaking, to face Ultimecia once more. 

The witch was still close to the ground, but out of reach still, should anyone else try to attack her as Zell had. Zell looked over his shoulder. Rinoa was still on her knees beside Squall, murmuring something too quietly to hear, as though sharing a secret with her departed love. Had she stopped Ultimecia's spell, or was it something else?

"Hey…Quisty, Irv," he hissed without breath through clenched teeth, still trying to recover from the brief torture he had just experienced. Both turned their attention to him, while keeping an eye one Ultimecia, who seemed to be concentrating, hovering in the midst of some spell. Another glance at Rinoa confirmed his Zell's fears—from the look on her face, Ultimecia was up to no good (what else was new?), and they had to act fast if they were to do anything about it. Judging from her helpless expression, Zell doubted she had any advice to offer, so turned to Quistis and Irvine, allowing Rinoa to continue her vigil over Squall's body. "Listen, I got a hunch," he continued after the pause, and a cough. "Irv, pop a slug at witchy woman up there, will ya?"

"Why for?"

"Just do it, will ya!"

Raising an eyebrow, Irvine adjusted his hat, then hefted his gun and aimed the barrel with nonchalant skill at Ultimecia, letting loose two shots that bounced off the walls of the open place. Both shots bounced harmlessly off Ultimecia's shield. 

"Now, Quisty, toss somethin' at 'er, a spell."

"What kind of spell?"

"I dunno! Any kind! Just so long as it's meant to blow crap up, it's fine." Why couldn't people just listen to him without asking so many questions? They didn't have much time. Zell sighed shakily in false exasperation. _Man, I gotta work on my people skills. _

Quistis chose a simple lightning spell, unsure of what hunch it was that Zell was testing. Squall had always given a reason for his actions…

But Squall wasn't here. Quistis let this fact fuel her, and threw the spell—which also struck harmlessly, absorbed in an instant by Ultimecia's barrier. 

"Okay, now both of you, same thing, at the same time."

Irvine and Quistis glanced at each other, and did as instructed. They understood what he was getting at—but why the demonstration? Irvine's round hit the barrier and bounced off. 

Quistis's bolt struck at Ultimecia, seeming to ignore the shield altogether.

The sorceress trembled as the electricity coursed through her, but otherwise seemed unharmed, and continued with her spell. Her eyes opened, revealing again the bloody circles. 

"Just a wild guess," Zell blurted triumphantly, standing straighter. "I get it now. 'S why what I did worked. She could take magic _or _weapons, so I was just wonderin' if she could handle both at once."

"We saw that. You could've just said so. So what's the plan?"

Before Zell could open his mouth, Ultimecia's voice one again ripped the air. It was a heartless, hideous giggling at first, one that mutated into a loud, haunting laughter, malignant and insane without being mindless. "_Idiotik children!_" she exploded, bringing her laughing-fit to an abrupt end. "You have not a plan in the world that will give you viktory! Worthless wretches, your chit sorceress protects you from my power, but even _she _has her limits! I have none! None, you pitiful freaks, _none!" _

Irvine raised a skeptical eyebrow, shouted back. "You in that hat, and you're calling _us _freaks?"

Ultimecia ignored him. "You may fight and fight until you die of old age, and you will still never taste triumph! I am not willing to wait for that time to pass. Very well! You have laid out your weak little cards. Now, feel the wrath of my hand!" Slowly, she began to rise, a little higher, higher, until she was once again level with her throne. "The most powerful Guardian Force," she began, as though the words were the final incantation for her spell.

Rinoa's head jerked up suddenly, staring at Ultimecia in horror. "_What…?"_

"…you shall—"

Eyes widening, Rinoa reached out helplessly in the other sorceress' direction. "Ultimecia!"

Quistis whirled at her cry of fear. "Rinoa, what's happening?"

Ultimecia finished her incantation with the single word that described her world at its core. "_Suffer!_" Her right hand raised above her head, gathered energy and threw it down, straight into the split in the floor. "Come hither to my kommand! Defend your master, champion of Guardians!"

Rinoa shook her head, unable to speak. She felt the summons that Ultimecia had sent out, one unlike any other. It called not on a Guardian Force, exactly, but the apparition of one…the persona of a beast so powerful, there would be no hope of destroying it. _How can she call on him? How are we going to survive? Oh, _Squall, _help us! _

How do we fight something that's immortal?

At first it seemed like nothing happened. Or would happen. The ground remained still. 

"Squall!"

Rinoa's grief-racked scream came in tandem with the portal that suddenly manifested in the broken stone. It started as a white pinpoint, expanding wider until it encompassed half the length of the throne room. Light spiked upward from the portal, and a hellish, beastly roar caused the ground to shake. Ultimecia was obscured and vanished into the blinding light and deafening noise. 

Rinoa bent over Squall's body as the creature rose, writhing and bellowing, from the portal. Sickly violet fur covered the four-legged thing from head to toe, oversized claws on each foot colored a dark blood red, huge spikes of the same color arming its elbows and heels. Arms that were too long for its body waved savagely as the beast broke free of the portal. Wings of steely white feathers lifted it into the air where it turned and faced its enemies.

Rinoa choked on her sorrow. The creature's head was that of a lion's. A white mane and a crown of blood-red spikes decorated a sneering face with blue eyes…_blue _eyes. Tears welled in Rinoa's black gaze. How sad Squall would be if he saw this. A creature of the greatest majesty…Squall's own imaginary Guardian that he had carried with him as a symbol of everything he desired to be…perverted by Ultimecia's evil into _this._

"The true power of the Guardian," Ultimecia's voice boomed, coming not from where she had been floating but from all around them. "Show them! I want them to suffer! No mercy! Griever—make them _bleed!_"

Zell backed up with the others, away from this terrible monster Ultimecia had called forth. In truth, he felt somewhat relieved. Here was something that would _fight _him, something he could hit back. But it was unlike any monster or guardian he had ever seen. "Geez, the hell _is _that thing?!" 

"It's exactly what Ultimecia said it is," Quistis breathed, chain whip limp in her hand. She was the only person aside from Rinoa who recognized this twisted creature, and fear—as well as sorrow—was threatening to freeze her. Irvine continued to remain uncharacteristically silent, shotgun ready in his hands. It seemed nothing could surprise him anymore.

Zell had the advantage of not understanding what they faced, and his order served to set them in motion again. "Well don't just stand there, round up! Protect Squall and Rinoa!"

__

'Squall and Rinoa', Rinoa repeated to herself. _… I've never actually heard anyone say that before…not like that… _"Be careful, Zell," she warned as the three created a human barricade between her and Griever. "You can't hurt him. He's a Guardian Force…immortal…"

"WHAT?!" _Man, and here I thought we were gonna rumble!_

"Everybody," Quistis cried in a warning that was not needed, "watch out!"

As Griever shot toward them, forked tongue lolling and massive claws ready to tear into his enemies, the floor of the throne room rocked, sending everyone to the ground as the twisted Guardian swooped just over their heads, missing them all by only a few feet. The ground broke free of the castle itself, and began levitating up, up, towards the sky and the shaded sun—or was the castle falling away beneath it?

"Oh, _shit—!_" Zell rolled to his right, barely avoiding an unexpected sweep of the bladed lion's-tail as Griever passed over him. A sharp cry behind him and a subsequent shout from Irvine alerted him that someone else had not been so lucky. He twisted his neck to look over his shoulder. "Quistis!"

Quistis was painfully picking herself up, with Irvine's help. She was holding her side, which had taken the edge of Griever's tail. It had only grazed her, but the cut looked bad enough that if it went untreated, she would not survive for too long. 

Rinoa watched as Quistis warded away any help, insisting that she use her own healing magic and that she would be fine in a moment or two. Watching Griever twist in the air and start back toward them for another pass, Rinoa knew they may not have a moment or two to spare. Closing her eyes, she wearily re-erected the barrier that had fallen under Ultimecia's assault, having rested enough to do so. Simultaneously, she beseeched a soul that had no way of answering her._ Squall, you created him, you can change him! Help us! I believe in what you said. I believe you're still here! I'm not giving up, I understand what you were trying to tell me. That death isn't the same thing here… just because you die doesn't mean you're gone…not if someone still believes in you._

She looked up just in time to see Griever descend upon her. 

Leviathan whistled in alarm when three of his fellow Guardians dropped back from the small mass trekking through the spirit plane, toward the desperate calls of those they had pledged to protect. _{What are you doing!} _The watery blue serpent hissed in rebuke as Quetzalcoatlus, Diablos and Cerberus lagged behind the others. The three seemed on the verge of turning back. _{We haven't the time to rest!}_

Diablos hovered in place as the parade of Guardian Forces passed around them, his blood-black wings wavering in an almost feeble manner. **_"I…cannot go on," _**he announced darkly, with little if any emotion in his heartless voice. **_"He whom I protect…is now dead."_**

If Leviathan could have blinked in surprise, he would have done so. In silent shock, he shot a hard "stare" at each of the other two Guardians, and saw only cold affirmation in their eyes. His gelatinous body shimmered and rippled with indecision. If Cerberus and Diablos left, he would be the strongest Guardian left to defend his summoner—and her comrades. He would have to lead the rest of the dwindling Guardians into battle against this horror beyond horrors that they faced. _{Come with us,} _he urged the halted Guardians, despite their claims. _{Your duty to answer your caller is not negated by his death. Indeed, I know whom you guard, and if he is dead as you say, then his comrades will need us all the more. You cannot back down on a basis of politics, protocol. Come. Answer the plea.}_

Why should we, Quetzal crackled his disdain, flapping electrical wings in agitated candor. _Even Bahamut, who should have answered to begin with, never heeded the summons at all! He is our monarch, oldest among us. If he believes this effort is futile, then why continue?_

**_"Bahamut gave no reason for his decision," _**Diablos pointed out. **_"Be it unwise, that we should speculate about his logic. He may have yet to determine his course of action."_**

_Nevertheless! _The Guardian of Lightning twisted in his impatience. _I see no more reason to proceed._

Cool your jets, Quetzal! With a scolding chitter, a tiny, bright ball of neon green shimmied up Leviathan's long body, alighting on the Water Guardian's head. The sparkling star dissolved, leaving in its place the squirrel-ish Carbuncle, who propped himself on his haunches and briskly groomed one rabbit-like green ear with a tiny forepaw. His ruby gem twinkled between his eyes in his fervency. _If you turn and run home with your big sparky tail between your wings just 'cuz no one's screaming for you to come rescue them, don't blame me when Ultimecia comes and twists _you _into one of her evil slaves! If it's all about you, like it usually is, then think about it this way—no more world, no more people to protect, and as soon as we have no one left to call on us, our powers won't mean a thing. Think about what she did to Catoblepas and Locutus.* Without anything to stop her, Ultimecia will waltz right up to you and take over your mind! How would ya like _that, _Blitz Bird?_

_Not much, _Quetzal conceded, _but look at us, Bunkie! Odin's dead, half of us have no strength left and were left behind, anyway, and our little human friends' best asset just bit the dust. And if you'll recall, not all the Guardians Ultimecia controls were brainwashed, you know. Tiamat joined her of his own accord. There's six others _left_, not including all of us talkin' here. I'm not some sort of kamikaze! You tell _me _how we're going to live through it._

**_"Again, you are assuming things that have not yet happened," _**Diablos growled in disgust, grinding his vice-like jaws so that his fangs rattled against each other. **_"We have not lost yet. Tiamat is simply a fool."_**

**_Enough! _**The booming tremor of Cerberus's three-throated voice silenced the argument. The tri-headed hell dog let his two side-heads cast glowing, withering glares at Diablos and Quetzal. His center, commanding head faced Leviathan and Carbuncle, and his lips curled in bloodthirsty agreement. **_I believe Leviathan and the chipmunk to be right. Back down now, and lose any hope we once had of salvation. I will continue on with the others…you may both do as you wish, but remember the consequences of your decisions. I will not be responsible for anything that happens as a result of your cowardice._** With nothing further to say, Cerberus launched himself forward, galloping past Leviathan to join the march to battle once again. 

Leviathan stayed only briefly, and watched as Diablos wordlessly followed Cerberus's example, folding his wings and bursting into thousands of tiny bats, which continued onward with the rest of the Guardians. 

The water serpent bowed his head for a moment, letting Carbuncle slide off and resume his previous form as a ball of light, which sprinted away with another sparkling chitter. Leviathan faced Quetzal again. _{Pandemonium was Selphie's Guardian. She had not even the chance to call him before she died. Still he continues on with us. Will you be the first to abandon your summoner's cause simply on account of his death and your own fear of defeat? Think about Squall, Quetzal. He is not a being who backs down to anything, least of all uncertainty and poor odds. If nothing else, those things make him more determined. A Guardian Force should emulate the qualities of those he or she protects, just as the summoner must match the qualities of their Guardian. At this moment, Quetzalcoatlus, I see little of Squall in you. That, I fear, may be just enough to prove the undoing of all of us.}_ Slowly, with a sorrowful air about him, the great sea serpent curled his lithe body around and took to a swimming flight through the plane of spirits, leaving Quetzal alone to quiver and buzz in a tumult of indecision.

With a furious, thunderous screech, Quetzalcoatlus turned back and parted ways with his brethren.


	3. Guardians of Hope

3

Guardians of Hope

--

__

"…for you and I are not destined to meet again in this world."

--

Rinoa stared into Griever's fiendish eyes without fear or reserve, simply because she knew the creature, however twisted, could not hurt her. Even now as it hovered overhead, staring at her in pure, unadulterated hatred, it made no move to do her any harm.

She had known this to begin with. If Ultimecia had indeed pulled Griever directly from Squall's mind when he had been in her custody, then no matter what the witch had done to pervert the Guardian, he was created of Squall's psyche. And there was nothing in Squall that could intentionally hurt her; in that small, but significant sense, she owned this beast. She could not control him, but nor could Ultimecia command him to attack the blue sorceress that now stood guard over Squall's inert body. Everyone else was vulnerable—just not her.

Griever appeared to be confused and frustrated at whatever contradictory thoughts were running through his hateful heart. The Guardian hovered, poised to strike, but clearly could not bring himself to lay a claw on the girl who sat staring at him defiantly.

Rinoa noticed the beast's eyes stray to the silver chain that held the ring of its namesake. _You remember, don't you, _she thought to the creature though it could not hear her. _Even you remember…so long as I've got this, I can't die. You're Squall's, no one else's…and because of you, he's still alive. I wonder if Ultimecia knows that._

Did that mean he would fight like Squall, she wondered, with the same unhindered ferocity? She remembered noticing that Squall often sought to overwhelm his enemy with his first strike, before they had a chance to turn and defend themselves. Watching as Griever abandoned his fruitless standoff with her, she thought to further strengthen the barriers that protected her three friends from harm, and wondered just how much good she was doing them anyway. 

Quistis had recovered from her injury in the short lull of Griever's confusion, with Zell and Irvine guarding her. Rinoa had urged them not to worry about her. She had her own agenda, her own plan to work with this Guardian of Ultimecia's creation and Squall's design. She just needed the right opportunity to present itself.

She thought briefly about what might have prevented the Guardian Forces from reaching them. Zell had clearly indicated that they were on their way, but had in some way become impeded or detained for reasons he knew not what. Not having called her Guardians (at Squall's request), she hadn't any idea why they had never showed up. She dared not waste the concentration it would require to find that out now.

As he rose to begin his next attack, a blinding flare of light exploded against Griever's back between his wings. The Guardian roared in rage, twisting in the air to face the spellcaster who had sought (in futility, it appeared) to ground him.

Zell made a taunting gesture, seeking to draw the beast away from his friends and into the open where it might be more easily engaged. "Pick on somebody of your own caliber, man!"

Griever's lip threatened to curl, but never did. His eyes squinted, and the expression was eerily familiar—and it was a sign they all recognized.

Zell momentarily suspended his bravado. "Uh-oh…" _I think I pissed him off. _

"I think you pissed him off!" Irvine's voice warned him. Zell didn't have the time to be annoyed. Griever attacked. 

It seemed that Griever could move faster than thought. One moment, the creature was hovering in place. The next, he was careening toward Zell, the entire body of the beast glowing eerily with deadly power. Like a hawk descending on its prey, Griever crashed into the ground in a calculated collision, talons spread and wings agape. Blood-red claws and a razor-edged tail cut and scarred the broken ground as the Guardian grappled with his victim. The only thing that saved Zell from a bloody death under Griever's claws was Rinoa's barrier. Even so, he did not come away unscathed. Griever struck out at the SeeD with claws and fangs, seeking to grasp him and tear him apart. Only the very tips of the huge claws penetrated Rinoa's shield, but it was enough to catch Zell on his arm, side and back; by the time he had scrambled out from beneath the monster, Zell's clothes were torn and frayed, the spikes of his hair had been amply blown backward, and he stumbled dazedly away from the raging beast. 

The silent sentinel over Squall's body bowed her head and wept. So here, the slaughter would begin. Unless someone found a way to defeat the undefeatable.

Griever wasted no time in resuming his assault. Twisting around with all the ease and grace of his feline body, the Guardian launched himself into the air again. He hovered over them briefly, oblivious to the rounds that Irvine scored in his impervious flesh and the spells that crackled and sputtered around him in futile attempts to do him harm. In a sudden, oddly human-like motion, Griever crossed his long arms and appeared to concentrate. A shout from the woman with blonde hair warned her comrades too late of his intentions. Griever's roar drowned out the woman's puny voice, and brought the sky around him to his command.

Air and heat coalesced at a central point over the Guardian's enemies. Darkness and light collapsed the growing sphere, releasing a shockwave of energy that raged like an army of white fire against Rinoa's barrier. As before when he had attacked Zell, the shield could not completely deflect Griever's power. The deadly front struck the three fighters under the sorceress' shield, sending them to the floor, gasping for breath, ravaged with pain, and fighting to get back on their feet. He did not wait for them to stand. With another roar, he called not the skies but the heavens to his aid. Flames tore the air and drew more power from the wind. Hundreds of shooting stars rained down, breaking the tile flooring and exposing the dirt ground beneath. The fist-sized meteors missed their summoner completely, seeming instead to target his foes. The smaller balls of flame bounced off the shielding, larger ones burning up in the energy field. Some made it through. A few scored hits. 

Quistis went down and did not get up. Zell knelt against the pain of burning wounds and stinging claw marks. Irvine got lucky. He was the only one of the three who remained standing after the storm had passed. More shots were fired as Griever swept down toward them all. The sharpshooter aimed for the beast's eyes. Even if he could not hurt the thing, surely he could at least cause it some pain and force it to retreat. 

Griever took one in the eyes. Head reeling, the Guardian screamed, rearing back and slowing his charge. But the hesitation was momentary, there was no injury suffered, and the pain only served to fuel his rage. He descended on Irvine, more furious than ever. Claws speared the barrier, back-handing a retreating sharpshooter and sending him hurdling head-over heels. Irvine lost his hat over the edge of the flying island. Sliding to within a few feet of the drop, he almost lost himself, as well. All the while, he clung stubbornly to his gun. Once again, he got lucky. Only his coat had been torn by Griever's claws. One last glance after his hat convinced him that the beloved item was gone. He stood up and faced the beast that was flying toward him again. It seemed, one by one, he was losing every thing and every person he cared for. 

Silently, he stood tall and let loose every round he could manage before Griever closed the gap between himself and his enemy. Irvine met the attack with his eyes open, sights trained perfectly on the creature's hateful stare. 

He only blinked when Griever stopped short of knocking him over the edge. The Guardian pulled up, missing Irvine altogether, and twisted in the air, pumping his wings and growling furiously as he tried to dislodge something from his back.

Zell had the beast by its white mane, and despite having been pummeled by claws and flaming stones, was making for the best rodeo display Irvine had ever seen in his life. The sharpshooter even smiled as Zell whooped and shouted, clinging gamely to the back of Griever's neck as the monster roared, bucked and twisted.

"YEEEEE HAH! Irv, you've gotta try this! Ohh, yeah! Ride it, baby, ride! Hoo!" He began reciting a chant Selphie had made up not long ago, albeit slightly edited, and he sounded nothing like any sort of cheerleader—from him, the words were taunting lyrics:

__

"Eenie, teenie, tiny, tale,

catch a lion by his tail,

if he hollers let 'im wail,

show 'em SeeD'll never fail!

Booya!"

But the show didn't last long. With a particularly violent twist, Griever managed to throw Zell off, and his bladed tail barely missed slicing the offender in half on the way to the ground. Zell landed with a painful _crack. _His shoulder split at the joint. Griever dove for him. 

Another cracking sound cut the melee, and this time it was Griever who was sent tumbling to the floor by a force so powerful it knocked him out of the air. The heavy creature crashed with a sound like thunder, shaking the ground and causing the fringes of the island to fall away from the whole. Clawing and snarling, he skidded across the dirt and tiles, inflicting deep gouges in the floor, and finally coming to a stop not far from where Zell had fallen. Jumping back to his feet, unharmed and furious, Griever kicked backward at the incapacitated, scoring a bone-snapping blow that almost threw Zell over the edge. 

Ignoring the slow moan of pain behind him, Griever searched for his other attacker, tail lashing dangerously. The magic had been exceedingly powerful, to knock him from flight. But even as he stared at her, he knew the sorceress in blue, the one he could not harm, was not the one who had attacked him. His gaze rested on an inert figure laying in the center of the island. His blue eyes burned colder. 

With a single, powerful beat of his wings, ignorant of the shots being fired at him from behind, Griever landed beside the woman he had previously thought dead. Now he knew better. He fumed internally. He was no mere animal. Playing dead would not fool him out of attacking. He would see to it that his enemies realized this. Muzzle arched in a livid, snarling scowl, he rested a clawed hand atop the "dead" woman, and watched in satisfaction as her eyes snapped open in terror.

'_Make them suffer!'_ His mistress had said to him. So be it.

Rinoa's heart was in her throat. She had seen Quistis fall, and had thought she was dead. She had lifted the barrier surrounding her friend, the better to concentrate on protecting Zell and Irvine. She'd had no idea Quistis was still alive.

Now she couldn't bear to watch, and turned her head away in grief and shame, her shoulders jerking painfully as she heard Quistis' first scream. 

_If I'd known…if I hadn't taken the shield away, this wouldn't be happening. Quistis, I'm so sorry! _Rinoa opened teary eyes and tried to concentrate on keeping Zell and Irvine safe. She looked nowhere else but Squall's peaceful face. She knew Zell could no longer fight. He was still alive, but there was no telling how much damage Griever had dealt him. Irvine stood over him, ready to defend his remaining comrade with his last breath. That's all Rinoa had seen before she'd been forced to look away. Quistis' spell had been supremely executed. Without looking, the veteran SeeD had still struck Griever squarely with the Ultima magic, saving Zell…and forfeiting her life in the process. If Quistis had been expecting such an outcome, Rinoa couldn't know. Somehow, she doubted it. Had Quistis trusted Rinoa to protect her?

Rinoa trembled, fighting the remorse building in her heart. She knew she couldn't afford to give in to guilt. Not now. Even if she had to fight Griever herself…

But they couldn't go on like this. Griever would slaughter them one by one. Zell and Irvine were at the opposite edge of the floating throne room, at the fringes of Rinoa's ability to protect them. If she hoped to shield them, she would have to get closer to them.

She couldn't leave Squall's side. He'd asked her not to. She would not. She couldn't attack. To do so would mean dropping the shield. Quistis's screams had died away. Still, Rinoa could not look. She pressed her hand against Squall's quiet heart. He was still warm. 

_Squall, how do we fight him? If you can, tell us how…I believe…_

More shrieks and shouts. Rinoa trembled under the rage of the beast.

_{Where _are _they?} _Leviathan twisted and coiled in distress. _{This realm is pure insanity! I cannot make heads or tails of it. How are we to find them in this mess?}_

**"As most of us have learned, Leviathan," **Diablos offered with unsettling calmness, **_"Ultimecia's time-compressed world wreaks havoc with this dimension."_**

{I know that!} Unusually agitated, the Water Guardian twisted this way and that, desperately seeking some indication of where to go. Cerberus sniffed and snorted at the air in his own version of the same futile effort. The other Guardians began to gather behind them. 

In disgust and frustration, Ifrit snorted a puff of hot smoke, causing Pandemonium to veer warily away from him. **"This is impossible. Even in this cursed place, we have been able to find our way before! Why are we walking in circles _now?_" **The Fire Guardian sneered with his feline visage and tossed his head bullishly, scattering yet more Guardians, who had no desire to meet the business-ends of his giant horns. **"There is a chaos in this place. Diablos, you must surely feel it."**

_"Undoubtedly," _the demon assented, **_"their battle has become so heated—forgive the pun, my friend—that it is creating too great a disturbance to isolate. The chaos is, in essence, everywhere."_**

I disagree. All eyes turned to one of Cerberus's heads—whichever was closest—and waited for him to speak again. **_No battle could create such an effect, not even in this place. Even if the Universe itself was at war, we are a part of it, and could learn to journey it. Something—perhaps intentionally—is preventing us from following our summons. I detect a strange scent. It resembles that of a Guardian Force…but it is…abnormal. I do not understand it. Perhaps it is that presence which is causing this confusion._**

So speak up, man, what's the answer? Pandemonium, silent until this point, sighed powerfully, letting his impatience further permeate the conversation with the stench of anxiety.

Cerberus's ears drooped, and his heads bowed in unison. **_I…do not know._**

Carbuncle clambered atop Leviathan's head again, his own ears limp with defeat. …_So it's over. We can't find them._

{Nonsense!} Leviathan rippled with anxious annoyance. _{I refuse to believe hope is lost. I will continue to search until Ultimecia herself destroys me.}_

**_As will I, _**Cerberus barked with three voices. **_But my heart is frightened…I fear that if we do find them…we will not find much._**

**So we crush the bastards who cause da problem! **Sacred pounded once big fist into the palm of his other hand, and shook his horns roughly. **Grind 'em to powder!**

"not so fast, bro." Minotaur horned in, forcing all present to crane their necks downward in order to see him. "can't do that if they're all dead. no people, no power, remember?"

**Oh, yeah. **Sacred's face fell, and he snorted in dismay. **Sorry.**

Siren pointed, suddenly. As was her nature, she said nothing, but let her actions speak for her. The Guardians turned attention to the indicated direction.

_What is _that? Carbuncle's question echoed their collective thoughts. Not far away, a shivering, blazing red and amber light hovered, as though it had been watching them and listening in on their discussion. 

It was a cloud-like thing, a tiny nebula that pulsed and flared like a fiery heart. It moved upon being discovered, rising above the Guardians' heads. There it remained, overlooking its spectators.

Most of the Guardians were too ancient not to recognize the little entity as a human soul. What was amazing was that this soul knew how to recognize _them…_and how to find them, evidently. 

Leviathan tested a curiosity, wondering if the spirit could understand them. _{Who are you?} _

There was no direct answer, at least, not at first. Of course, it made sense—disembodied as it was, the soul had no way of communicating with them in words. But there was a reaction, nevertheless, one that indicated some form of understanding. The nebula flared brightly, then dimmed again to a softer radiance. 

__

I know! Still perched on Leviathan's head, Carbuncle waved his paw about excitedly. _Charades! _

Ifrit sneered. **"This is no time for _games, _chipmunk."**

__

Not a game, _silly! _The little Guardian giggled. _Just to talk! If it can't speak, then maybe it can show us what it wants to say. Siren does it all the time. _He glanced at Siren, who smiled appreciatively, her winged ears wavering gently. 

Leviathan took the suggestion to heart. He addressed the soul once more. _{Indeed. If you can, show us who you are, or what you want to say.}_

Diablos had other ideas. Annoyed, he flapped his black wings, rising over the other Guardians. **_"Standing idle in an attempt to converse with a human spirit is hardly what I deem an appropriate use of our time. Come. We must continue our search. Aiding lost souls is a pointless activity."_**

So what if it ain't lost? Pandemonium folded his bloated arms. Maybe it can help us. And _you _complain about _us _making impulsive decisions."

****

Yeah, agreed Sacred. **What if it came lookin' for us? **

__

{Hush!} Annoyed at the constant bickering amongst the Guardians, Leviathan cast them all an angry scowl, one that was made stronger (if perhaps a little silly-looking) by Carbuncle's own beady-eyed leer. Wisely, there was no laughing, and the water serpent was allowed to continue his one-sided conversation with the human spirit.

When he looked back to where the little nebula had been, however, he saw not a glowing cloud, but an image. The gaseous soul had reshaped itself, so that it was no longer a formless entity, but a flaming, very recognizable symbol: the head of a roaring lion.

There was no question amidst the Guardians just who it was that had found them. There was surprise, even shock, but no skepticism. Only one human bore that trademark. 

Cerberus lunged forward, landing firmly in front of Leviathan and howling with delight at the sight of his lost summoner. **_Take us to them, _**he cried with all three heads. **_We will follow! _**

The image disintegrated, leaving only the nebula, which hovered for a moment before flaring again and racing out into the darkness.

There was no strength left in Rinoa's heart, and no answer to her pleas. Griever was torturing her. With every blow against her shield in his fight to reach Irvine and Zell, Griever rocked Rinoa's mind. Each attempt was more brutal and savage. Rinoa fought to strengthen the shield enough to keep the beast from so much as touching Irvine _or_ Zell. She had never tried so hard at anything. Irvine was doing his best to tend to poor Zell, who was no longer capable of fighting by any stretch of the imagination. When Rinoa had dared to look around her again, Quistis' body—whatever might have been left of it—had vanished. Only a pool of blood marked the ground where Griever had killed her. Now, only Zell and Irvine remained, with Rinoa as their faltering wall of defense. 

Even if she could defend them from Griever, they had no hope of ever killing the beast. He was completely immortal, like the other Guardians, only, somehow, he was able to stay and fight for however long Ultimecia wished. There was no Code of the Guardians known to Griever. He followed no rules. All he existed for was hate, blood and death. It was his sole purpose.

Squall could not answer her. If he even heard her anymore, she could not know. If he could, there was nothing he could do to help her, or any of them. More and more, Rinoa was beginning to believe that their hopes had died with Squall.

But she would _not _let herself believe that. He had told her not to leave his side, and to trust him. She did trust him. His word was the only thing she trusted, anymore.

Griever collided with the shield one more time. Rinoa cried out, cringing. Her head was spinning with the strain. She couldn't hold it up much longer. 

Another roar. Rinoa opened her eyes. The voice—it was different. It wasn't Griever's bellow. Cooler, lighter, deeper…

__

Leviathan? She twisted around just in time to watch a watery portal expand behind her. Instead of his usual slow, gradual transition from water to flesh, however, Leviathan burst from that other dimension he resided in, sending showers of glittering diamond water spraying in all directions. The giant serpent howled melodically, and twisted his sinuous body to face Griever, hissing viciously in threat. Griever stopped his attacks on Rinoa's shield, and faced this new adversary. For a moment, it looked as though Leviathan and Griever were bound for a one-on-one duel.

Then the rest of the Guardians arrived, all of them roaring and snarling and screeching. Ifrit burst forth from an explosion of flame. The Minotaur Brothers climbed over the edges of the floor, snorting and tossing their heads, brandishing huge morning stars. The wind began to churn, whipping needles of dust in Griever's face while Pandemonium materialized from within a small twister of sand and debris. Darkness overshadowed the sky, bringing with it the terrible screeches of a thousand tiny bats, which rushed past a snarling Griever in a chaos of wings, squeals and sharp vampire teeth. They congealed nearby, forming the sphere of black blood that Diablos escaped with a single sweep of his dark wings. Somewhere there was music, haunting, enchanting, and though she remained invisible, Siren made her presence discreetly known. The final gateway opened, and the last Guardian to arrive stepped out from a glowing red gate, a portal from Hell into this no less demented realm. Three-headed Cerberus howled and growled as the gates closed up behind him, and he stood in the center of the circle with the rest of the surviving Guardians backing him. Leviathan and Diablos moved to flank the demon dog, and the three faced Griever as the captains and commodores of their terrible army. The Guardians surrounded Griever, all of them bristling with their power and ready to fight to the immortal death.

Rinoa watched all this with a mixture of relief and total awe. Never before had she seen such a display from the Guardian Forces. She had never thought that the creatures could work as a comprehensive whole. 

Her assumption was clearly wrong. That didn't matter. The Guardian Forces, once hailed as gods by ancient civilizations, were here.

And they were angry.

Griever surveyed his new challenges with cool patience. He counted eight beasts, all of them as immortal as he. Immortal, yes. But not omnipotent. They could be defeated, beaten into submission. None of them were as powerful as he was. He could take them all, if he was careful. 

He growled deep in his throat at the three-headed dog beast directly before him. That one was the strongest. He would take him out first. Meanwhile, the creature, who appeared to be the ringleader of this unannounced circus of deathless beasts, was snarling in menace.

**_Freak of Guardians! What are you? Name yourself, or face destruction!_**

Griever did not answer. He had no intention of answering, now or ever. He only stared deep into the three pairs of yellow eyes, calculating the creature's intent. He knew the Guardian Forces would not attack one of their own kind, not unless the Guardian in question had broken one of their sacred laws. What did this black-and-red monster believe?

Snarling, yellowed teeth bared and dripping with acidic saliva, the hell dog began a slow, cautious approach of the hovering pseudo-Guardian. Griever watched him carefully, and listened.

**_I am Cerberus, Guardian of the death that awaits you if you refuse to answer…_now. **

As if the last word was a cue, all the other Guardians took yet more threatening stances, each of them—even gracious Leviathan—seeming anxious to rush in and tear this traitor to pieces. _{This creature,} _the serpent announced darkly, _{is the source of the chaos that has been preventing us from reaching our charges. He is not a Guardian Force, Cerberus. He is not anything that will ever become a Guardian. He is a creation with the power of a Guardian. A synthetic Guardian Force, one that should not be allowed to continue to exist!} _In his barely contained anger, Leviathan hissed again, edging his head forward. The Water Guardian looked ready to burst with fury. _{Mark my words, imposter,} _he warned, _{your prowess will never extend beyond this puny scrap of land.}_

At the same time all the threatening and bellowing was beginning, Irvine crouched over an semi-conscious Zell. Both arms broken, not to mention a rib or two, Zell seemed too mired in pain to care much about what was happening. Irvine glanced nervously at Rinoa, who was watching the Guardian standoff with awed fixation.

****

_Darn it, Rinoa, I know it's fascinating, but quit watching the show for a second. Zell needs your help! _With much arm-waving, Irvine finally succeeded in acquiring her audience. Saying nothing, he pointed fervently with both hands at Zell, watching Rinoa expectantly for a response. Disappointingly, she only shrugged helplessly. Trying again for her comprehension, the sharpshooter pointed at her, then at Zell again, waving his fingers about in imitation of witchy spell-casting.

Rinoa made a signal with her hand, one Irvine couldn't understand, himself. He gave her an exasperated look of confusion. _Is that some SeeD thing that Squall taught you? _He shook his head and spread his arms in frustrated entreaty. _I don't understand that stuff. Signal in English! _He started to adjust his hat, only to remember belatedly that he'd lost it to the skies far below them. He settled instead for scratching his head. 

"The…shield, man…"

Startled, Irvine bent closer to Zell, all the while marveling that the SeeD had still been paying attention. "Say that again?"

"That shield thing," Zell rasped between rough breaths that painted the ground with small flecks of blood. "Can't…keep it up if she helps me. One or the other, man…"

"That Griever bugger is surrounded. How do I tell her to forget the shield and help you?"

Zell said nothing else. Either he didn't know or couldn't speak any more than he already had. 

Irvine settled for mouthing the words, "do it anyway," hoping Rinoa would get the point. 

As if seeking advice from him, Rinoa looked away and down at Squall. If their lost captain could give her any kind of guidance, it was on a level that only Rinoa could understand. Irvine waited.

Rinoa closed her eyes the shield that had been protecting them became visible for a brief second before flickering and fading away. A pale ripple of her sorceress magic preceded the glittering blue that surrounded her and caused her hair to waver. Irvine twisted around to stare at Zell. As he watched, a similar radiance, far more intense, surrounded the SeeD's body. A sharp gleam of white, like sunlight glinting off steel, grew in Zell's chest before shooting out in all directions. Irvine was forced to avert his eyes. When he looked back, Zell was slowly, delicately picking himself up. Immediately, the shield was back up.

Zell tested his arms, first one, then the other, taking deep breaths all the while. While Irvine sat amazed, Zell rolled his head, audibly cracking his neck, blinked a few times and unsteadily stood up, teetering a bit before gaining his balance. Irvine made as if to help his friend, but Zell waved him away. "Nah, I can stand up." Nevertheless, the normally spunky SeeD seemed mellowed and tired. He didn't even seem to think about the fact that Rinoa had healed him in a matter of seconds. 

Irvine glanced over his shoulder at Rinoa, whose eyes were still closed. She was still as stone, save for her breathing. _If she could help Zell that fast, _the sharpshooter wondered, _how come she couldn't do that for Squall earlier…? _He supposed it must have had something to do with the fact Ultimecia had inflicted those injuries.

He supposed it didn't matter, at this point.

"So what's goin' on," Zell asked him wearily. "What's all this? The big guys are all here."

He received only a shrug for an answer.

"A'ight." Heaving a huge sigh, he decided he might as well resume his unwanted role as "replacement for Squall." At least right now, he had an idea of what he was going to do. "Irv, you stay here," he instructed. "I'm gonna…go talk to 'er." He gestured at Rinoa. Not waiting for an answer, Zell did his best to straighten up, and marched, not too importantly, over to where Rinoa knelt, still in her trance.

Meanwhile the Guardians tensed for battle.

_{…your prowess will never extend beyond this puny scrap of land.}_

Leviathan had to snatch his head back to avoid a right-handed cuff by Griever's scythe-like claws. The "fake" Guardian was amazingly swift. The sea serpent only narrowly escaped with his pointed snout still in one piece. But the motion was enough; Leviathan would hesitate no longer. He attacked.

Screeching his anger, the giant sea serpent lunged forward at the leonine beast, striking like a cobra, aiming for the eyes. Three lightning-fast stabs of his pointed, horny beak landed no successful blows, but they were enough to put Griever on the defensive, backing up a few feet to avoid each attack. Leviathan followed the brief assault with another shrill battle cry, and called on his own power to aid him in his next strike.

The other Guardians were behind him, their own roars reinforcing his own, and the thunderous sound rocked the air. Leviathan's body began to lose its cohesion. His next pass, as expected, did not deter Griever, but encouraged the creature to attack. The blood-red claws struck Leviathan squarely in the face—and passed uselessly through a body of impervious water.

Griever found himself suddenly trapped in the coils of a liquid constrictor. Sea water tightened around his chest, filled his mouth. He tried to roar, and only succeeded in breathing in a mouthful of the salty stuff. His wings were useless in the suffocating enclosure. He began to writhe, twisting desperately in a futile attempt to free himself. He felt giant hands and claws on him. Sacred, the larger of the Minotaur Brothers, plucked the water-encased Griever from the air and threw him roughly to the center of the floating floor. The impact did not harm Leviathan, now nothing but a monstrous water container.

Griever felt the water pressure around him increase, threatening to crush him. He had no strength to free himself. But he could still see quite well through the transparent liquid. His blue eyes fixed intently on the girl. He could not touch her. Another human was walking toward her. He didn't have what Griever sought. The icy gaze rested at last on the lone person a few meters away, the gunman that had scored a hit in the beast's eyes. Eyes narrowed. It was not much, but he would do. Bellowing soundlessly in his watery cage as Diablos and Cerberus descended on him, Griever reached out with his mind, grasped the power he had sensed within the human, and violently snatched it away.

Irvine had never had anything draw magic from him before. It was a rather painful, peculiar feeling, but he was able to keep standing even as he watched the unmistakable magic energy fly away from him and to…whoever it was that had taken it. 

Only humans and certain, very rare animals had the ability to glean magic from other beings. Irvine found himself somewhat disconcerted as well as puzzled, brushed his hand over his hair in an attempt to center himself. _What was that? _When he looked up again, his eyes widened. A flutter of fear entered his heart.

_Griever_ cast the spell he had drawn from Irvine's mind. The spell had not been meant to attack with, but as an escape tool; Leviathan, having surrounded Griever completely, became suddenly opaque. Griever had frozen his living prison. The Guardians who had rushed in to attack him now had their limbs mired in ice.

Not a moment later, the sphere of ice cracked through to its center, and Griever, screaming his rage, broke free. His wings snapped open, knife-like feathers slicing through the ice and sending shards of it scattering in all directions. Two thrusts of the powerful limbs carried him upward again. This time, he was not surrounded. He had room to move. 

True to his intentions, he attacked Cerberus first. Stuck in the ice, the dog could not move to avoid any assault. His heavy, reptilian tail was still free, though, and he didn't hesitate to use it.

Griever had made a miscalculation in diving at Cerberus head-first. The thrashing tail of the hell dog whipped around unexpectedly, slamming against Griever's face and knocking him to the ground. Griever flipped onto his feet and took to the air again before he could be overwhelmed by the many smaller Guardians—who were standing around like jackals, simply waiting for their chance to move in.

There was no time to rest. Once in the air, Griever came face-to-face with a huge, black-winged demon. Diablos crashed into him with crushing force, and the two began to grapple in the air, Griever's booming roars and Diablos' raspy grunts bouncing off walls that didn't appear to be there. 

Ifrit took the opportunity to rush to Sacred, Cerberus and Pandemonium's aid. The Fire Lord, being who he was, had the privilege of melting the unnaturally hard ice that immobilized the other Guardians' limbs. He did this by simply touching the ice around each trapped hand or paw; his lip curled in a wicked, cattish smirk. Holding out on hand, he conjured a flaming mass of lava, and casually tossed it into the remaining chunks of ice. The molten liquid spread over the frozen pieces, quickly melting them away—or, more accurately, evaporating them completely.

The steam that rose from the quickly cooling ground twisted and gave itself form—and in a few moments, Leviathan's glowing eyes were scowling at Ifrit from within a vaporous, serpentine apparition.

__

{Thank you, O Lord Pyromaniac, but that was just a bit _more than was necessary.}_ Gradually, the mist was beginning to settle, and the serpent began to regain a watery consistency.

In a rare, comical gesture of apology, Ifrit offered a sheepish, toothy grin and wisely moved away from the rapidly recovering Leviathan, who, by the looks of it, was half-ready to exact retribution and drench the fiery Guardian.

Meanwhile, Diablos and Griever had taken their battle to a height that made the contest very difficult to see. It was impossible to tell who, if either of them, was winning, and there was little any of them—save Leviathan, who had not yet regained complete control over his form—could do to assist.

****

"Says who?" Ifrit sensed the collective thoughts of the other Guardians, and snorted puffs of red smoke. **"You act like a bunch of mortals. Whoever heard of a Guardian who couldn't fly?" **To emphasize his words, he rose a few meters off the ground, floating easily in mid-air. 

**__**

I resent that question… Cerberus flattened his ears, his feet heavy on the ground. But his attention was on the skies.

Tired of the other Guardians' incessant tendencies toward prattle, Leviathan wasn't paying attention. He was too busy trying to make out the battle high above. His eyes were keen, and if he had to make a judgement, it was that the fight was not going well for Diablos. As soon as he could, the sea serpent had every intention of lending his assistance. If he could bring the battle closer to this ground, Cerberus could fight, as well. If Ifrit chose to charge in to Diablos' aid, that was all well and good, but Leviathan doubted it would be enough. Watching the fight from below, Griever appeared to Leviathan to be immune to Diablos' magic—which left the dark Guardian with only his immense strength as a weapon. Pandemonium could only control the air, and in this case, violent winds would cause just as many problems for Diablos as it would for Griever. Siren's song seemed louder now than it had ever been, but if it was directed at Griever, judging by all the bellowing, it had no effect whatsoever of the creature. Carbuncle had no offensive powers.

__

{Carbuncle?} Where was the little Guardian, anyway?

"Yo," Zell whispered, startling Rinoa as he crouched down next to her. He offered a brief half-smile at her reaction. "How ya doin'?"

She nodded vaguely as the first screech of battle rose from the throng of Guardians, and for a moment, they both watched as the first attacks were exchanged between Griever and Leviathan. 

But despite the shaking of the ground, the roars and the ruckus, the eerie sound of Siren's song in the wind, neither Zell nor Rinoa had much wish to watch for long. Zell had given Irvine that role. Instead, he raised his voice a little to be heard over the noise. "You know what that thing is, don't ya? Tell me about it." He never mentioned how she had healed him, did not thank her. It was too soon to be extending gratitude.

Rinoa stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the floor. She grasped the ring on its chain at her chest. "Zell, do you remember the monster that's on Squall's ring? The one I asked you to copy for me?"

"Well, sure. I remember it looked cool. What's that got to do with anything?"

Rinoa hesitated, then held up the ring, such that the "monster" was facing Zell. "Take a closer look."

Zell leaned forward, squinting at the finely detailed metalwork. He raised an eyebrow and sat back again, watching Rinoa uncertainly. "…A lion with wings?"

"Yes."

"Hey…that Griever thing looks a lot like a lion with wings." Zell began to look more and more uneasy, as though some terribly uncomfortable notion had popped into his head. "You're freakin' me out, girl. What's it gotta do with everything?" 

"The name of this symbol is Griever." She stared at the ring, finally let it rest against her skin once more. "He's Squall's creation," she explained. "A Guardian Force…it's one he made up." She watched sadly as Griever broke free of an icy entrapment. "Griever is a symbol of strength and courage. It's Squall's way of fighting his fear."

"…I still don't get it."

"Griever can't die," Rinoa summed up. "When Ultimecia had Squall in her power, she _took _Griever from his mind, and recreated this facsimile."

"Pretty damn good facsimile." Zell craned his neck to watch as Diablos and Griever rose higher and higher into the sky. "The big guys don't seem to be leaving a scratch on 'im"

"Somehow, Ultimecia was able to give Griever life, and then bend him to her will. If he has every quality that Squall gave him, then I don't know if _any _of the Guardians here will be able to beat him. I can only guess…but as far as I know, Squall made up Griever to be the ultimate Guardian."

"What about Bahamut? And that Quetzer…Ketzy…whatever his name is?"

The tired sorceress sighed gravely. "With Squall gone, they have no reason to come…I'm surprised Diablos and Cerberus showed up." For that matter, she was surprised at Leviathan's appearance. She hadn't actively _called _Leviathan. Why had he come and others stayed behind?

"I got another question."

She blinked, jarred from her thoughts. "What's that?"

"Selphie an' Quistis…disappeared. Why's Squall still here?" Rinoa did not answer. Zell briefly glanced at Squall's body, and repressed a shiver. He still couldn't believe Squall was dead. Any moment, he expected his friend to open his eyes and get up. The part of Zell that knew that it was real, that Squall would never come back, sent chills through him. He couldn't find it within him to feel any emotion at the loss. Perhaps that was partly because he didn't fully believe it had happened. Part of it was because he had to be strong for the rest of them. Part of it was because he knew he still had a job to do.

Quistis and Selphie, too, lingered on his mind, but for some reason, it wasn't as hard for him to believe they were gone. They were no longer here to look at. He _could _feel loss over them…and the terrible ache was transformed to anger in his heart. _That witch bitch's got the nerve to steal stuff from other people's heads? Talk about unoriginal. _The thought did not reflect his rage, which was causing his fists to shake. He covered one fist with the other hand to calm himself. "So this thing is from Squall's head. That means it's gonna think like Squall in a lot of ways, right? In a way, it's _Squall_ we're fighting, here."

Rinoa cringed. "Zell, don't say that—"

"It's true, Rinoa. I know you don't like it, but now that I think about it, it's been fighting like Squall this whole time. You get in my field, you learn to see these things. Trust me."

"Squall would _never _attack his friends!" Rinoa snapped, tears brimming. "He would rather die…" She trailed off, regretting her poor choice of words. 

Zell put a hand to his face. Immediately afterward, he realized how unlike him it was to do this, and lifted his head, staring at his hand. _Squall used to do that a lot when he was having trouble. _He made a decision as an agonized scream tore the air high above. "I'm not gonna forget 'im, 'k? That thing up there isn't him. All I'm sayin' is that it fights the same way. If we're gonna have a prayer in hell of taking it down, we gotta learn to think like Squall…an' then we gotta learn how to _outthink _'im."

Diablos crashed to the ground.

Griever wasn't far behind, plunging toward his enemy, wings tucked at his sides. The leonine beast landed on its feet, pinning the black-and-red Guardian beneath his crushing weight. To Zell and Rinoa's utter astonishment, Diablos howled in pain, then shattered beneath Griever's claws. Each piece of Diablos became a screaming, fluttering bat; the bats collectively dispersed, effectively dissolving the defeated Guardian Force. 

Griever stood tall, roaring victoriously. There was not a scratch on him.

Rinoa bowed her head and prayed to whoever might be listening.

Ifrit was the first to return Griever's roar of triumph with one of fury. **"Beast of witches," **the Fire Lord bellowed, **"You are stronger than you look. But face the rest of us at once, and see how well you die!" **There were roars and screeches of concurrence.

Griever sneered, turning slowly to face his next challenge. His white wings snapped open like switchblades, each razor-edged feather gleaming like silver in the sickly sun. Two powerful thrusts brought him about, and two more carried him directly into Ifrit's claws. With the impact of the two Guardians, there was a great explosion. The blast seared Griever's exposed belly and his clawed hands came away burned and blistered, a result of the simple act of touching Ifrit's fiery fur. He paid the wounds no heed. Locked in a power struggle with the Fire Lord, Griever's long arms gave him no advantage in the wrestling match he had started. The "lesser" Guardian was surprisingly strong; the two grappled and snarled for a few seconds, both feline heads roaring defiance in the other's face. Other Guardians attacked, giving Griever no opportunity to defend himself. Pandemonium's powerful breath brought the brawling Guardians into the center of the disembodied throne room floor. Sacred, daring the wrath of the fluttering wings, rushed in with a grunt, Morning star swinging. The spiked weapon bounced harmlessly off Griever's tough hide. Griever and Ifrit continued to tear at each other. Ifrit was conjuring flame left and right, the air around him exploding with heat and cinder. His powers were not directed well; he threw flame and explosions without thought as to who else might become victim of the attacks, however unintentionally. One such fireball struck the ground not far from where Irvine was stationed. The sharpshooter shook a fist at him and yelled something that Ifrit was too busy to hear. Griever had him on the ground, and was raking at his hot flesh with furious abandon. The Fire Lord released a panther-like scream of pain and frustration, breathing fire in the eyes of his enemy. The assault had no effect whatsoever. 

It seemed that the more Griever was attacked, the more aggressive and ruthless he became. Even with biting wind whipping at his face, a three-headed hell hound snapping at his limbs, the Minotaur brothers getting in a powerful swing wherever they could, and the sharp sting of Leviathan's strike, Griever finally succeeded in getting his jaws under Ifrit's defenses, snapping them shut on the Fire Lord's throat. Cerberus threw spell after spell, blasting Griever's face with fire and lightning, hoping to dislodge the deadly fangs. When this failed, and Ifrit's roaring became weaker, Cerberus charged, howling. The big Guardian crashed headlong into Griever, finally knocking the winged beast away, forcing the jaws to release their hold.

Ifrit seemed dead. Giving a low whine, Cerberus nudged the Fire Lord's head with one of his own, while Leviathan and Pandemonium kept their enemy occupied. Cerberus ignored his burned nose, nudged Ifrit again. This time the blazing eyes did open, but they were dim and reddish. The Fire Lord turned his head weakly to stare at Cerberus. **"Defeated…by _this?_" **His eyes went dark; Ifrit vanished, leaving behind only a charred patch to mark where he had met his defeat.

Cerberus watched from afar as Griever got the jump on Pandemonium, silencing the churning wind that blew gently at Cerberus's ears. Sacred and Minotaur were simply tossed overboard, falling into the empty sky far below. 

The hell hound growled deeply in all three of his throats, claws gripping the ground as he watched Griever ascend into the sky again. The blue eyes trained on him. Cerberus' ears flattened. He waved his tail tauntingly above his head. He was the next target.

He sneered at the irony of it all. Who would have given thought to the prospect that the Guardian of the death gates would ever have to admit himself to his own realm?

Leviathan didn't bother to help as Cerberus clashed with Griever. Powerful as the hell dog was, he would meet the same fate as the rest of them had at Griever's claws. The liquid serpent looked to the skies. It didn't matter. Griever could not be harmed. Every wound that was inflicted on the beast was healed within moments, and he would continue to fight until his opponent was too exhausted to resist him any longer. Leviathan thought to himself: _{There is not a chance of taking him on, not if he can catch you. Once he's on you, it's all over. He won't let go until you've expended every ounce of strength you have left. He becomes stronger with each assault. It's almost as if…} _He shrunk at the idea that came to mind. _{As though he's _absorbing _our powers. Simply by touching him, we make him stronger. No magic we can create is strong enough to defeat him. Perhaps…an all-out power-struggle is the wrong way to go about this. But what other choice is there? Are we too late? Have we exhausted every option?}_

Cerberus was doing surprisingly well; his armored body protected him from Griever's fangs and claws, and his sheer size made it impossible to grapple with him. But Griever had one advantage over Cerberus; his ability to draw magic. It should have been impossible, but there was the fact before Leviathan's aquamarine eyes. Griever was deftly weathering blasts of pure white from each of Cerberus's mouths, hovering close, drawing spell after spell from the snarling hound, all the while staying just out of reach of the heavy tail. Cerberus was lost in his own fury, growling, howling, jumping and snapping at a challenger that floated tantalizingly out of reach. 

__

{He's building up to something.} Taking the opportunity, the water serpent turned away from the fight, heading toward the sorceress he guarded. It was an unusual thing to do, but these were unusual circumstances. The Guardian asked his own summoner for help. He stopped just short of the powerful barrier that guarded Rinoa and her remaining two comrades. Both Zell and Irvine were on the ground now, trembling and helpless as they felt the defeat of their respective Guardians. Leviathan allowed himself a moment of sympathy for the two young men. It was enough to feel the pain of a single Guardian's utter defeat, but all at once? It must have been nothing less than torment.

Leviathan looked through the barrier as though it were a glass window. His eyes focused on Rinoa, and the boy she knelt over.

__

{So it is true,} the Guardian spoke aloud, startling Rinoa, who started to cringe in fear. But the sight of her own Guardian, majestic Leviathan, peering down at her with sadness in his deep gaze, both calmed and moved her. _{he is gone. It is a wonder he found us at all.}_

"Found you?" Rinoa lowered the shield around her so the Guardian could come closer. "I don't understand."

If Leviathan could have smiled, he would have. He dipped his head lower, leaning forward with his long body until his pointed snout was only feet away from Rinoa. If she had tried, she might have been able to reach out and touch the Guardian's slick-looking hide. But she did not try. She did not dare. _{He heard your pleas, Rinoa. He came in search of us, and led us to you when we were lost in this dark world. It is because of Squall that we were able find you.} _A cacophony of bellowing prompted Leviathan to twist his neck around to look behind him. Griever and Cerberus were struggling, the former pinned beneath the front paws of the latter. How Cerberus had accomplished such a feat was anyone's guess. It did not matter. He was buying time at the most. Leviathan returned his attention to a teary-eyed Rinoa. _{There is not much time.}_

"He…heard me." Rinoa looked away from her Guardian. Her emotions betrayed her. She collapsed, falling forward to rest her head against Squall's silent chest. She cried, choking to keep herself from making any noise. She heard no heartbeat, felt no breath. No comforting arms encircled her, no warmth shielded her from her fears. She had never felt so alone as she did in that moment. She didn't care anymore. All she wanted was to be with Squall…as it was, life was what separated them, now. "It doesn't matter," she murmured. Only a Guardian Force could have heard her. Leviathan did. And he continued to listen. "Zell and Irvine can't do anything, I can't do anything…Griever's invincible. Squall's done everything he can, and _more_…he's given his life for us—Squall and Quistis, and Selphie, they all did." She sat up, slowly, hugging Squall's still figure desperately in her arms. She buried her face in the white fur of his collar. "Squall heard me, and he brought you. I just want to talk to him…I want to know if he's okay. If he's scared, or…or sad."

Leviathan lowered his head to the floor and slithered quietly around Rinoa, circling the sorceress and her fallen love, his body a protective wall. A fin-like wing sheltered them in its shadow. _{He is as close to your heart as he can be,} _the Guardian whispered. _{Do not lose hope. You will see him again, someday. Until then…he will wait.}_

'I'll be waiting…'

Rinoa closed her watery eyes. Had Squall known that he would be waiting in this way?

__

{He will not leave you.} 

She nodded slightly. _Whatever happens, I'll see you again, Squall. I won't give up before I do._

__

Big guy! C'mon, ya old dinosaur, get your scaly lizard butt outta bed. I didn't come over here for nuthin'! Screeching loudly, Quetzalcoatlus swooshed past a dark, hidden cavern, located on a forgotten island in the center of a roiling sea. He'd brought an army of thunderheads with him. The storm whipped up the wind until it howled past the cavern's entrance, churned the waves until they crashed against the sides of the rock, sent bolt after bolt of white lightning raining down to scour the stony outcroppings above the ground and shake the cavern with thunder until it threatened to collapse.

In short, the Guardian of Lightning was throwing a temper tantrum, and in the process making an absolutely hideous racket.

Stony eyelids parted, revealing two glowing green slits in the rock inside the black cavern. The sleepy visage narrowed further at the sight of who had disrupted his slumber. A deep, low growl, louder and stronger than the storm outside, shook the entire island as the thunder never could.

Quetzal stopped his rampaging rants, and the skies quieted for a while as the ocean still rocked around him. He hovered in place before the entrance to the cave, waiting expectantly for a follow-up of this response from the darkness.

The eyes inside flashed angrily. **_{Imbecilic brat,} _**came an all-consuming, guttural voicethat seemed to originate from nowhere. The sound was omnipresent, in the sky, the water, the earth, the darkness. Quetzal could hardly keep _himself _from shaking amidst the thunderous tone. **_{Are you quite finished? You have created enough _noise _to make the planets plug their ears and move to the next solar system. You need not make so much ruckus to awaken me! I hear every insect that walks on this earth—do you think I need you to announce your presence to be aware of it? A deaf moose could hear you coming from halfway across the world, for all the noise you make. If I wanted to speak to you, I would have been waiting outside long before you ever shined your ugly light on my lair!}_**

Quetzal waited with uncharacteristic patience for the insults to stop. He returned smoothly, _Well, I got you to talk to me, didn't I?_

The green eyes narrowed to bare threads of furious light and the island shook again under the force of another thunderous snarl. **_{Smart aleck fool! WHAT IS IT?!}_**

Oh, nothing much, the Guardian cooed, his tone becoming more sarcastic as he went on, _the world as we know it is about to end, that's all. _He awaited an answer for a full minute before deciding that the silent eyes were waiting for him to elaborate. _Evil sorceress, world domination, alternate dimensions, that sort of thing. Turns out the rest of us Guardian Forces are a little tuckered out, and the bad guy's about to win. It came up in a conversation over coffee that maybe if we had _you _on our side, it just might turn the tables a little bit. So I was stopping by to let you know that unless something really good happens_, _the whole world's gonna be enslaved by the time you finish your nap. Just thought you'd like to know. Y'know—in case you wanted to _help _or anything. Oh, and, by the way— _Quetzal added as he winged around to leave, _Squall's dead. _He was about to fly away and leave the green eyes to their slumber again, when a bellow, louder than any of the others that had rocked the island, ripped the air and sent small claws of lightning crawling across the dark clouds. _Yeah, _Quetzal went on, turning around to face the cave again, _he, ah, called for you, but I guess you were asleep. Everyone else decided to go on to try and help his buddies, even after he died, but I came back here to get you, because you know what? Without you, we're basically screwed. I didn't feel like getting blown up or something, so I decided I'd come see if I could piss you off enough to get you into a fighting mood. _A short pause. _Is it working?_

The answer was a tooth-rattling bellow, and another question. **_{The girl, the one with Hyne's power…she lives still?}_**

Oh, she's still alive. So far as I know.

****

{Then there is still hope…}

Believe me, I wish _that was the general consensus._

****

{Very well!} The voice roared, eyes shining angrily. Flashes of steely blue hinted at more than just the disembodied stare within that dark entrance. **_{I will go. As for you—you should return to your element. You need not dabble in this matter any longer.}_**

Yeah, right. Nice try, big guy. I'm coming with you whether you like it or not.

The clouds became yet darker, obscuring what little sunlight was left and pitching the skies into night as the eyes and their owner stepped forth from the cave. So dark was it that little could be seen of the beast's armored form. A snort from the creature briefly illuminated the shore with blue light, outlining a lithe reptilian body and a huge pair of bladed, folded wings. The creature's tail lashed like a whip in the dimness. **_{You choose to go, and I will not stop you. I warn you that you will only get in my way.}_**

Don't worry, Quetzal countered with reserved confidence as the so-called King of Guardians spread his mighty wings and leapt straight up into the sky. _When you start blowing stuff up, I plan to be as far out of your way as possible._


	4. Broken Glass

4

Broken Glass

--

__

"Too much done to undo

No one I can run to

I need one more chance

To live my life again…"

--

**** __

{You…you are not like us… What are you?}

****

Leviathan hissed threateningly, snorted boiling steam. His neck was poised and ready to strike, his head level with Griever's stare. The two Guardians, the only immortal creatures left standing on the barren piece of floating land, circled each other slowly, each waiting for the other to make a move.

_{_Speak, _you damned creature! Has this entire battle been child's play for you? You walk into the fangs of the Guardians instead of attacking those we protect. What power do you take from us?} _The only answer Leviathan received was a "test" strike from one of Griever's hands. The Water Guardian pulled his head out of Griever's long reach, continuing to circle and shriek. _{What are you made of? Why do you obey Ultimecia's foul command? Have you no will of your own?}_

Griever made another lunge, this time with more purpose behind the attack. Leviathan evaded the strike and backed away a little, his long body coiling up, his head lowered until it almost touched the ground. He screeched and flared his spiny wings, shaking them as a pit viper would rattle its tail, sending showers of icy water outward upon his enemy. Griever shook off the wetness with a brief shiver, and continued to advance slowly. The lion-like beast seemed hesitant to attack Leviathan, as though suspecting some sort of cunning ploy.

In reality, Leviathan was buying time, trying to think of a way to defeat this monster who seemed to have no weakness. The Water Guardian could see no soul in Griever's eyes, only hatred, fury, and a frightening, hollow intelligence that betrayed no notion of mercy. _{Perhaps that is why,} _Leviathan thought, _{we cannot compete with you. This is a realm of spirits, and you have no spirit to speak of. Just a body, living, but empty! Only by destroying Ultimecia do we destroy you. And where is she? Sitting on a throne, laughing, I suppose? You horrible beast, are you nothing but a puppet of her will?}_

There was no being here that could equal Griever's strength. Leviathan could fight him, but would it be a useless attempt? He feared so. Time seemed hung up on a hope that victory could yet be had against doom. The image was frozen, Guardian vs. Guardian standing off in the false light of an endless sky, the leader of freedom's efforts dead on the drifting floor, his love powerless to help him, his friends incapacitated in the dirt. The universe waited for some decision to be made, some movement, some spoken word. There was only silence. And then a roar.

Griever jumped, wings opening with the abruptness of a steel trap. He bolted past Leviathan, who twisted around and cried out in rage as the black-violet monster vaulted over him—not to attack Leviathan, but to attack the Guardian's allies. His human allies.

Leviathan was not slow, despite his size. With the grace of any other serpent, he whisked himself from one place to the next, rising up to hold himself between Griever and his targets: the unconscious Zell and Irvine. Leviathan knew what Griever planned to do, and knew that in her weakened state, Rinoa could not hope to protect herself or anyone else against it. He also knew that he could not allow Griever to succeed in his plans. Positioning himself as a living barricade between the humans and the monster, the Water Guardian shrieked again, stretching his liquid body and raising his head higher until he towered over Griever, who watched with unnerving calm. Leviathan flared his wings as far out as they would go, his scales glistening and sparkling every hue of blue, green and indigo. He cried a warbling challenge to the unstoppable beast he faced. _{You believe you are invincible? Then fight! Fight me, Griever, and spare none of your cursed power!}_

Rinoa felt rather than saw the skies around her darken. In the remaining light, the shadows of two Guardian Forces clashed. The Shadows loomed over her, twisting and battling until she had no more heart to watch. She cried out and turned away as Griever landed his first successful blow on the gemlike beauty of Leviathan's hide. Rinoa did not want to see her Guardian bleed. She was certain the sight would make her sick. Red was not a color that belonged to gentle Leviathan.

But she heard the screams of her Guardian, and felt it in her heart when his body jerked in pain. Her shoulders jerked, as well, but it was the pain of tears, not claws, that tortured her. _I'm sorry, Leviathan, _she cried in her mind. _If I could do something…_

_{It is not your place to defend me,} _came the answer, the mental voice ginger and sympathetic. _{It is mine to protect you. And that is what I will do, even if it costs me defeat. Do not weep for me, Rinoa. I only do that which I am meant to do. For that, I wish no pity.}_

Rinoa brushed away a tear, one of few, for she had little left with which to cry. _Then at least let me hope._

{That, you must do, for without it, defeat is inevitable.}

Thank you.

{Always, Rinoa. Always.}

Unseen, the shadows raged on.

Leviathan fought as he never had, twisting his body to avoid Griever's claws, taking every opportunity to wrap his coils around his enemy's throat, limbs and body. He did not aim to win this battle; only to force Griever into releasing all the energy gleaned in the previous fights with the other Guardians. If Griever used whatever weapon he had stored up to defeat Leviathan, then he could not use it on Rinoa's shield. Griever had defeated all of the other Guardians by wearing them down, bit by bit, until they had no strength left in their bodies to fight. But Leviathan had one unique quality about him; his elemental form could not be absorbed or destroyed by Griever's power. Where fire could have been stamped out, water could slip away; where wind could simply be inhaled, water could not be breathed; where stone could be broken, water could reform. Leviathan's wounds healed as swiftly as they were inflicted, closing up like parted liquid. There was no energy for Griever to absorb, because water relied solely on the energy of the universe for its power. The Water Guardian could forsake his serpentine body and take any shape he wished, and Griever could not injure him or tire him. And so Leviathan dueled.

Only when Leviathan was in a solid form could he harm Griever. Fortunately, he could switch from one form to another in an instant, and not all of him had to be solid or liquid at once. 

Griever swung at Leviathan's head, but his claws passed through it with only a huge splash as a reward. A second later, a heavy and very solid tail crashed against his side in retribution, and sent him reeling to the ground, which was slowly breaking up beneath the constant battling of the giants.

One would not have thought Leviathan could fight so viciously, nor move so quickly. His body whipped one way, then twisted and streaked in another direction, stopped, turned around for a snake-like strike, once, twice—then he was water beneath Griever's claws. Twice he ducked underneath Griever, entwined his body with the creature's feet, and solidified for long enough to wrench his enemy sideways and send him to the ground.

He learned early on that magical assaults were useless; whatever form of water he threw at Griever, the monster would either deflect the rush or part it effortlessly before it could touch him. Leviathan's only course of attack was a physical power-struggle and contest of speed and cunning. Griever was almost as fast as he was, and could move with all the agility of a human martial arts specialist—something Leviathan had never seen before in a creature of Griever's size and shape. Except, perhaps, one Guardian who was not present…

In fact, the beast moved in a very humanlike way, although with a distinctly feline aspect. Griever used every part of his body as a weapon, from his claws and teeth to his bladed wings, tail and thorny crown of blood red spines, and he wielded each with the ease and skill of a master: his tail he swung like a huge bladed mace, while his powerful wings served as twin swords and shields. He used no magic. His hands and feet were his deadliest weapons. He fought like a trained soldier.

Like a SeeD, Leviathan realized in astonishment as he was caught unexpectedly in the face by one of the sharp feathers of Griever's right wing. Screaming in rage, the serpent knocked Griever to the ground again with his heavy tail, but Griever showed indications of his more feline characteristics, flipping over in midair before he had a chance to hit the ground, and landing squarely in a catlike crouch. He was in the air again before Leviathan could catch him off guard. 

Squall had indeed invented the ultimate Guardian, adaptable, quick to learn, impossible to tire, with the physical abilities of both animal and human. If only he were on the same side as the rest of the Guardian Forces! Leviathan was pushing himself to his limit simply to keep up with Griever's speed. The Guardians kept in close quarters, matching each other strike for strike, reflex for lightning reflex. 

Leviathan got in two lucky strikes, stabbing Griever deep in the shoulder with his sharp beak, then dipping his head and rearing up, ramming his backward-facing horns upward into the lion-beast's chin, spraying a shower of hot blood and hurling his enemy head-over-heels to the edge of the deteriorating ground. Before Griever could even hit the ground, Leviathan was there, and followed up with another thunderous blow from his tail, knocking Griever even closer to the edge. Griever was about to jump to his feet again, but Leviathan had already encircled his left hind leg. The serpent gave a twist and kept Griever from getting up, stabbed the clawed hand that reached up to grab his head, then began to curl his body, shifting from solid to liquid again and in the process forming a wave that crashed into Griever, wetting the ground beneath the enemy Guardian and causing him to begin to slip over the edge. 

Griever's claws grappled for purchase on wet ground that came up muddied and slippery in his paws. The living wave washed over him, reshaping itself to culminate under his wings and shove him, finally, off the edge and into the air amidst a cold spray of hissing water that reformed into a serpent for just long enough to swing a powerful tail at him. Griever reached for the tail, but missed. Leviathan dove below him just before he righted himself in midair. Griever whirled and pumped his powerful wings once, twice, carrying him up—

His wings swept downward, and Leviathan's tail came at him in just that instant, snapping like a flat-ended whip against the joints that connected wing and shoulder. There was a deafening _crack, _like the snapping of a tree branch, and a scream of rage followed by a hiss of triumph. Griever's left wing twisted back unnaturally, and the astonished Guardian began to fall, his limb broken at the hinge. Careening out of control, he roared furiously as he tumbled, flailing, into the clouds below.

Leviathan watched as Griever fell, waited until he could no longer see the accursed Guardian's plummeting shape. Longer still, he waited, until he was certain that the beast was gone—for how long, he could not be sure. 

Reverting into a semi-liquid form, retaining the serpentine shape without any texture to his watery flesh, Leviathan returned to the crumbling landscape, slithering quickly toward Rinoa.

Rinoa seemed more exhausted than Leviathan, still breathing heavily from the adrenaline of awaiting the fight's outcome. She stared up as her Guardian became solid again, beaming at him in disbelief. Nearby, Zell and Irvine were beginning to recover, still dazed, but aware enough to have realized what had been happening. They, too, gazed upon the Water Guardian in disbelief.

"Way to go, man," Zell blurted in shocked tonelessness. "You kicked his ass. I dunno how, but you did it."

Leviathan glanced at the bewildered SeeD. _{There is no way to know how long it will take Griever to recover. Judging from his resilience, I would guess only a few minutes. I have bought a little time to think. That is all. Much as I wish it were true, Zell, I doubt that I truly "kicked his ass."}_

****

"So, big guy, what do we do? The other GFs are history."

Leviathan sighed a fine mist, looking fatigued and sullen._ (I wish I had an answer…)_

An answer…I wish I _had one. _All out of options. No more Guardian Forces left to fight this demon beast. _Have to get back. Have to find a way. _This wasn't death. This was limbo. _Can I take control again? I can't remember what it's like… _How to breathe? How to see? _What am I doing here? I can't move…my body. _It was dead. That was it, of course, the key to all this darkness. _But I'm still here. If they can repair the damage…maybe I can come back. _That was all the body was, after all. A machine that no longer functioned. _So it's just a question of fixing it. I could…come back. _But there was no connection with the physical world, except through a corpse. No way to send a sign to them, so they'd know…

__

What if I can get it to work, for just a few seconds? That's all I'd need. Concentrate hard enough. Give it just enough life to awaken. _Just a mechanism, like anything else. I think I'm starting to understand. _Get the machine to "boot," give it power for just long enough to send a single message, before it shut down again. 

Before it could die a second time…

  
  
****

Leviathan's head snapped up. He twisted his long body around to scan the barren area. The clouds were darkening around them. A distant roar had echoed in the distance. Griever. _{He is returning.}_

Zell dared to touch the serpentine Guardian, knocking on the side of Leviathan's translucent scales to get his attention. "There's gotta be _somethin' _that can kill this thing, right? _Nothing's _totally invincible." His hand came away dripping with cold water. Blinking a couple times at his wet fingers, Zell shook away the moisture as he heard Irvine cock his gun.

"If there's anything that comes close, Griever is," Rinoa supplied tonelessly. "He's absorbing all the GFs' energy. Leviathan only won that skirmish because he didn't use much magic. I think the only way to hurt him would be through physical injury."

_{Even then, he heals himself instantly. It would have to be a terribly powerful force, to have any hope of incapacitating him. Also, Griever still has all of the raw energy he absorbed from the other Guardians. He could use it at any time, and if he chose to, he could easily destroy this floating platform, and everything on it. I tried to get him to expend the magic on me. He never did.} _Forlornly, Leviathan began a slow pattern with his body, encircling Rinoa and the others. His body elongated as he moved, stretching until he'd coiled himself, layer upon layer in a circle. It created a wall of protection around them, and he spread his spiny wings over the top of the enclosure, effectively sealing them in.

Irvine peered up the steep walls of blue scales, which were quickly turning transparent. In a few moments, they might as well have been surrounded by a fortress of bubbly glass. "What's all this for?"

_{I used much of my strength fighting...I am still weakening. I have retained this form for too long…I will exhaust myself, soon. But I will stay as long as I can. If Griever returns and tries to attack me, he must have Rinoa's wall to contend with.} _The Guardian cast the young sorceress a serious stare. _{I ask of you a most unusual favor, Rinoa. When Griever returns, you must erect your shield. You must protect _me. _He cannot be allowed to reach me. The only chance he has of breaking your shield is to use his stores of magic to overwhelm you—I saw he did so once before.}_

Rinoa bowed her head. She trembled, remembering Quistis' screams.

_{If he uses that power again, as much as he's built up, I will be your only defense against him. This wall may protect you from a single such attack, but no more. Once he has used his weapon, I will be…defunct.}_

Zell folded his arms. "You mean vaporized." He hadn't meant any joke.

_{Essentially.} _Leviathan nodded his long head. _{Once I am gone, you will have only Rinoa left to protect you. I can't even promise you I can save you. But if the time comes, I will try.}_

The roar sounded again. This time, it was much closer.

Rinoa looked up, her eyes widening slightly in fear. She took a deep breath. The air shimmered. The shield was back up.

"What is goin' on, around here?" Zell turned around and around, staring through the glass water. The skies had turned black. Only the faintest hints of light could be seen peeking through clouds that seemed to be getting closer and closer to the piece of flying land. 

Rinoa shook her head. For once she was not looking at Squall. She, like Irvine and Zell, was staring wide-eyed at the darkening world that encircled them.

Lighting flashed close to them, striking bright and blue. Rinoa bit short a startled cry, and ducked closer to the ground. Zell and Irvine backed into each other, ended up holding each other by the shoulders in order to keep from falling. They quickly let go, dusting themselves off, both looking a bit undignified. Irvine took up his gun, and Zell adopted a fighting stance.

Another roar. Rinoa shivered. _He's close—_

More accurately, he was back.

Griever shot upward from beneath the ground, passing so close, his razor-edged wings caught the edge and knocked off a large section of floor. As the disembodied pieces fell into oblivion below, Griever turned in the air, slowed, and then propelled himself toward Leviathan's makeshift fortress with three hefty strokes of his wings.

He slammed into Rinoa's shield at breakneck speed, bouncing off as if he'd hit a rubber wall.

Rinoa choked on a scream, shaking from the crushing blow. She slammed her eyes shut, concentrating on keeping the barrier up, while at the same time planting her arms against Squall's chest to keep _herself _from falling forward on her face.

Her eyes opened suddenly. She nearly forgot to breathe. Beneath her fingers, had she felt…movement?

Only through extreme effort was she able to keep herself focused enough to keep the shield up as Griever crashed into it again. The frustrated beast screamed and clawed at the invisible wall. His roars mingled with the thunder, and his eyes flashed like the lightning around them. It was beginning to rain.

Zell glanced at Irvine. "Is _he _causing this storm?"

Irvine shook his head and shrugged. "I dunno. Could be."

Rinoa wasn't paying attention. Her attention was divided almost evenly between keeping her shield up and watching Squall. She placed her hand again his cheek. He was getting colder as the moments passed. 

"Rinoa! What's happening?"

She looked up to see Griever ripping through her shield. _Oh no! _She must have lost her concentration. Quickly, she tried to strengthen the barrier. But Griever was already halfway through it—

_Not so fast, Top Cat! Why don't you pick on someone your own size!_

If Leviathan had been capable of smiling, he would have. _{Quetzal…}_ The Water Guardian watched in growing satisfaction as the huge thunder bird plunged, shrieking, from the black clouds. Before Griever had the chance to react, Quetzalcoatlus had plowed into him, knocking him away from the shield, which Rinoa was quick to reconstruct. 

Shimmering appreciatively, Leviathan let out a nasal cry of hope. If anyone could outrun or outmaneuver Griever, it was the Master of Lightning. Quetzal might not be able to defeat Griever, but Leviathan knew the electric bird had bought them all valuable time. 

Quetzal made no attempt to keep from gloating. _Timing's everything, ain't it? Guess that means you're all wet, ya big water snake!! _He twisted away from a furious Griever's swiping claws.

_{Don't use your magic on him!} _Leviathan warned, ignoring the smart comments. _{He'll only absorb it!}_

_Oh, really? Just can't stay away from the tough crowd, can ya? _Flipping backward, Quetzal avoided yet another of Griever's swift strikes. In one instant, the huge bird was facing the twisted Guardian head-on. The next, he'd vanished as a bolt of lightning came his way, disappearing into the current, passing through Griever's left wing, and reappearing behind the beast. _That's okay. I'm just playin' with 'im right now, anyway._

{Playing?!}

Quetzal would say no more. Either he was too busy, or did not wish to elaborate.

Zell smartly thought better of watching the contest. "So he's buyin' some time. Let's think, people. Any ideas?"

"Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it." Irvine glanced from the battle outside to Zell, then back again.

Zell's eyes widened. "Can't believe I just heard those words come outta your mouth, man."

Rinoa snapped at them both. "Seriously. We need to think of something. Leviathan," She tilted her head back to make an attempt at meeting the Guardian's eyes, "You said Griever might be defeated if something hit him with enough _non-magical _power. Is that right?"

_{I believe so.} _The big serpent bobbed his head in agreement. _{It's been proven he can be injured, physically.}_

"Is there anything you know of here that can create the kind of power we'd need to do that?"

Seeming to hesitate, Leviathan stared down at her for a long moment. _{I'm afraid not,} _he said finally. He didn't sound overly sure of himself. It was an odd quality to his "voice" that Rinoa didn't like.

"Are you sure? You sound like that's not all there is to it."

Leviathan glanced at her again, and again he sighed uncertainly, _{I'm…quite sure.}_

If Rinoa hadn't known better, she'd have thought he was keeping something from her.

The air began to buzz with an odd energy that drew everyone's attention back to the battle outside. Rinoa's words caught in her throat. Griever had Quetzalcoatlus in his claws, both of the bird's glowing wings forcibly pinned to his sides. Quetzal was squawking and shrieking in protest, but was trapped. As they watched, Griever began to _visibly _soak in the Guardian's powerful elemental strength.

Leviathan bowed his head in sorrow as he saw the bird's struggles begin to weaken. _{Alas, Quetzal, you played too rough, it seems.} _In a matter of moments, they would be right back where they started.

Quetzal gave one last screech as Griever threw him roughly to the ground. Strangely, the bird did not vanish. He simply laid there, darkened, prone—and seemingly very much alive.

Leviathan puzzled over this. Was there some sort of limit to how much power Griever could absorb? He had not drained Quetzal completely. Why?

So saturated with power, Griever spread his now-glowing wings over the limp form of his last victim, and turned to face Leviathan's humble wall. Teeth bared, eyes flashing, the demonic Guardian lifted himself into the air with little more than a light fanning of his wings. The beast closed its eyes, and seemed to go into a light trance.

__

{This is it,} Leviathan warned, panic threatening to grip his heart. _{He's summoning the power he has taken from us!}_

A little farther…try to remember what it's like… Something to hold onto. Some memory, or image. _What was it like? I can't remember! _What was it like to breathe? What was it like to speak? _When did I ever pay attention to things like that? _

Sorceress memorial. He brought the memory back, replayed it. He remembered, his heart was pounding. He'd opened his arms and caught her, held her tightly. All the while his heart had been drumming, and…he _remembered _listening to himself breathe. He remembered what it felt like. 

Desperately, he tried to recreate the sensation. _Come on! Damn it! _Just one breath. One breath would bring him back for long enough. Even if his heart couldn't utter so much as a murmur. Just for a moment…

__

…I have to be stronger than this!

Squall did not live within any perception of time he'd ever been able to define to himself. He lived only within Ultimecia's time-compressed world, where there _wasn't _any time. At least, there wasn't if you could avoid perceiving it. He didn't think about time now. He pictured the place where he lay, pictured Rinoa kneeling beside him, her hand on his chest, her attention fixed on something that to him, was far in the distance. He concentrated again, forced his lifeless body to _breathe _inside this timeless existence.A weak, barely perceptible puff of air escaped his numb lips. Not enough. He had to try harder. There would be no waking this body. All he could hope to do was control it, _force _it to move with his own power…but he doubted he'd have the strength to keep it up for long.

Another breath, this one deeper. He felt a pressure, somehow, as if by forcing his body to take in life-giving air, it was responding by trying to pull him back into itself. He relented to the pull, feeling a familiar self-awareness fall across him like a web of clingy tethers. He tightened the grip of that _conscious _feeling by forcing yet another breath. With a suddenness he hadn't expected, the strange snare solidified, and he was entrapped inside his shell of a body. Amidst a momentary feeling of panic, he forgot to make himself breathe, and the network that had seemed so impenetrable a second ago began to break apart at the seams. Regaining his confidence at this short letup, Squall breathed in again. The walls swallowed him once more, and this time he didn't fear them; this body was dead. Without his power to move it, it could not sustain itself. It was a strange revelation to him. He'd often heard death spoken of as a release. It had never quite occurred to him that one was so literally a prisoner in _life._

It was easier to command his breaths, now, though they were still weak, and practically useless. He couldn't feel anything, but he was aware of his physical being. If he could just concentrate through the murkiness of his consciousness…

__

Can't feel anything. Deaf…probably blind, too. Nothing's working. It was a bizarre experience,like pushing buttons on a broken assembly line. Apparently if he wanted anything to happen, he'd have to work every pulley himself. 

He could still see Rinoa, not with his eyes, but with his…spirit? But he didn't believe in ghosts. Whatever he was, he could "hear" with the same strange, incorporeal sense. At least in that way, he was still separate from his body, and those were two things he didn't need from it. All he needed to figure out was how to move and speak. That would be difficult enough.

But he had to. He had a knowledge of this world, now, that would help them fight Ultimecia, if he could _live _one last time… It was possible. It had to be.

If Squall could have squinted with effort, he would have. Instead he felt a sensation he remembered as _warmth _kindle somewhere inside him, as he struggled to make himself move. The shallow breaths were becoming easier with practice. He was only half-certain he was actually moving at all. He strained further, trying to remember a time he used his hand to gasp something. 

The image came clearly. He'd knelt by her bedside, and his heart had felt swollen with pain and fear. Desperately, he'd thought of something to do, some way of reaching her—taken her hand, and held it, feeling how cold it was and willing his own warmth to go to her, that he might somehow bring her out of her cursed sleep. The memory of feeling her hand in his, wrapping his fingers around it in silent agony… _'You smiled when our eyes met. You were so full of life…'_

The recollection itself was almost too much to bear, but he held onto it, relived the pain, the fear, the frustration and anger. He let the emotions fuel him, let them culminate into that one vital strength, that ultimately powerful sensation that could tear down the walls that souls built around themselves.

Just enough. Just a few moments…

The hair rose on the back of Rinoa's neck. She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of Griever. She was certain she was about to die. Any moment now, Griever would release another deadly shockwave of pure force and magic, and this time, she doubted anything would be able to stop it. Not her barrier, not Leviathan's. Only a moment ago, she thought she'd heard Squall's voice, whispering her name. He was waiting for her. He'd be there to meet her when she died.

__

"Rinoa…"

She trembled. The voice was so real, it was as though he were there next to her. But so weak and tired-sounding…not surprising, either, after all he'd been through before his death. Rinoa's eyes brimmed with tears she'd thought had run dry with the rain. Together, they would face torment by Ultimecia's hand forever. _Maybe, if we're with each other, it won't be so bad…_ Who was she kidding? Ultimecia would tear them apart from each other just to enhance their torture.

It was so unfair. Squall would go mad, alone. And she would go numb without him.

Something brushed against her hand. Startled, she snatched it away. Her gaze froze, as did she, when she looked down to see what had touched her.

She stared in frightened bewilderment as Squall's fingertips shuddered and then went limp, once more resting lifelessly atop his stomach as they had been only minutes ago. As Rinoa watched, his chest rose slightly in a shaking, forced breath.

Squall was alive!

Rinoa forgot about Griever completely. She forgot about Leviathan, Zell and Irvine, and grasped the hand that had tried to reach her. "S…Squall?" She lightly touched his face with her fingertips. He was still cold. She saw no more movement, and the hand she held was heavy and motionless. But she knew what she had seen. "Squall, I'm here. I heard you…" Her tears were now falling freely. 

But it looked as though she'd been delusional. Squall didn't move. Rinoa gripped his hand tightly, refusing to believe what she'd seen had been a hallucination.

His eyelids quivered, and his fingers curled in her hands, as if trying to return the grip. Shaking from excitement, Rinoa obliged him, pressing her hand into his palm so he could grasp it. "Can you hear me?" she whispered, then repeated it louder when she realized how quietly she'd said it. "Squall, can you hear me?"

Squall did not answer. Again his eyelids fluttered, and his meager grip on her hand strengthened slightly for a second.

Rinoa watched him, her excitement dimming. He was obviously alive, but it was strange…she did not see him breathing, and he was still cold, colder than any living being should be. She could feel no pulse in his hand. No color had returned to his drained face.

Finally, after multiple attempts of what appeared to be tremendous effort, Squall's eyes parted halfway. Rinoa swallowed her heart. He was blind, she was certain; he didn't focus, stared straight out into a distant nothing. His eyes did not so much as expand or contract in any kind of reaction to the light.

With evident difficulty, he blinked once, and took in another slow, labored breath. Rinoa watched with mixed feelings of helplessness, sadness and amazement. How could anyone live like this? It made her feel ill, watching him struggle.

"Squall," she tried again, gently. "Can you hear me? I'm right here…"

__

'I'm right here.' Squall strained to listen to her words through the strange sense he possessed that wasn't quite "hearing." 

He wished he could hold her, wished he could cry with her, wished most of all he could actually _feel _the warmth of her hand in his. He wanted nothing less than to answer her. The wish, the _need_ burned inside of him, agonizingly pure, though he could feel nothing. His numbness hurt that much more. _I'm here, too! _he cried without sound. 

He'd learned something from controlling this dead thing—no matter what was done do "fix" it, this body would never truly live again. It lacked a very vital ingredient: life. This body was not something he could simply reinhabit, nor would it start working again once it was repaired. It needed _life _to function, _life _to keep him here, contained in this physical world. Life had left him when he had died. It was something that no one could ever give back to him, and his still heart ached in sorrow for this fact.

Even if he managed to speak to Rinoa, it would not be long before his body became completely incapable of containing him. After that, he would lose her, for good. There was no escaping this reality. And what would he do without her? Where would he go in this damnable, lonely blackness called death?

__

Who's gonna keep her safe? She can't fight alone. Damn it! He wished he had the release of tears. He was sure that if he could, he would have let them fall. But the longer he waited, the deeper his body sank into the mires of death. _Let me answer her. Let me wake up, _he pleaded to fate, to life. Like a maddened beast, he writhed and struggled for strength in his pit. No more separation.

__

Let me out of this cage!

****

Squall's eyes managed to open again, barely, blindly, but enough for Rinoa's resolve strengthened, along with her hope. She watched in awed, bewildered silence as he blinked once, took a solid breath—the first she had seen so far—and fought to speak with that breath. 

His voice sounded watery and decayed, thick and toneless as if his tongue was numb. "Where are you? …Can't see."

"I'm here," she whispered right away, rubbing his icy hand to try and warm it. "I'm right beside you."

"Turn…my eyes," he croaked on the last of his single breath. He forced another. "I wanna face you."

Haltingly, Rinoa did as he asked. With the greatest care, she lifted his shoulders up and cradled his head in her arms. She turned his head toward her, casting an eerily lightless stare on her face. She fought against a knot in her throat. "There. Is that…better?" She licked her dry lips, feeling uncontrollable shivers course through her. She saw no life in that dead gaze. If he had not spoken to her a moment ago, she wouldn't have believed…

His eyes closed again, mercifully breaking that soulless stare. "I wish I could tell." Squall shuddered with the release of another breath, and he lay still again for a few more long moments.

Rinoa slowly began to get an awful, skin-crawling sensation, like she actually was holding onto a corpse, cradling it like a dead child. She felt no heartbeat, no warmth, and it looked like Squall only breathed when he was about to speak. Still, unless she was imagining it all (at this point, it wouldn't have surprised her if she was), he was clearly holding on _somehow._ How, she couldn't begin to imagine. Tentatively, she tried a healing spell, one of the strongest she knew. Nothing. No light, no change. It was like casting magic on a rock. 

When his eyelids parted again, the blank expression assaulting her once more, she knew he could hear her, and took the opportunity to talk. "What can I do? If you can, tell me how I can help you—"

She stopped speaking. His hand clutched at hers, and his head swayed ever so slightly from side to side. Another forced breath explained his abrupt response. "…You can't." Slowly, his blank expression took on a hint of sadness. Though it could have been a trick of the darkening skies, his eyes seemed suddenly moistened, where before they had looked dry and opaque. 

Rinoa frowned defiantly. "Why _not? _I'm not just going to let you d—"

"It's too late," he hissed, interrupting her. "I'm…already dead, Rinoa." He wheezed out the last of his air. Another moment, and his eyes were shut again. "There's nothing you can do."

Silent, confused, Rinoa took his words in while he rested. When he was "awake" once more, she had only one question: "How?"

"I can…move…power…" His answer trailed off, broken and incomprehensible. When he breathed again, he changed the subject. "I can't do this for long. I have…to tell you, someth—" The end of his air marked the end of his sentence.

"Something?" Rinoa finished for him. "What is it?"

"Just listen to me," he commanded weakly. "Griever…is hollow. He doesn't exist…he's invincible," Squall choked, and his mouth continued to move for a moment before he realized he was again out of air. He heaved a giant breath, as if to sigh his frustration, but instead continued his message. "…He's like a black hole, takes in everything around him, because he's empty. You can't kill him since he isn't alive." Another breath. "Not undead. He never was alive. 'S why Ultimecia could create him. He just is, without living. So...the only way to kill him...give him life." Squeezing Rinoa's hand, Squall closed his eyes, but continued to talk. "Make him alive, and he can die, just like…anyone else."

"How do I do that?"

"You're…a sorceress. You can hold him in your…power. Then I can…get into him, like I'm in this body now. Give him a…sense of self. Give him life, mortality. It would be temporary, but I can. Once he's alive, you can take him…out." Exhausted, Squall said nothing else, offering only the occasional shallow breath to let Rinoa know he was still with her.

"I don't know how," Rinoa protested softly, nervously stroking his hair. "I can try, but…Squall, it's almost like I don't care anymore. I just want you back, I don't want to fight anymore!"

Thunder rumbled somewhere distant, though other than the dead sliver of rock Rinoa knelt on, she wondered what land the storm had left to strike. 

Squall regarded Rinoa's distorted visage as if he were viewing her from underwater, and she was above the undulating surface. It was the only way he could see her, through this sense, and the image was murky at best. But he could see she was crying, he could hear her choking breath all around him, and as such he was immersed in her pain, experiencing it like it was his own. 

He fought for control of his body again. What insidious thing had conceived the idea of these cramped physical prisons? What cruel beast had thought up the idea of life and death? Who had implemented this devious plan to separate people from each other in such a horrendous way? He hated it all. _She wants me back, and there's no good reason why that's not possible, except this! _

And yet was any of this real at all? This time compressed world had folded dimensions upon one another. For all he knew, the only reason he was still aware of himself was that he had been killed in one dimension and not another. He had always believed death to be oblivion, nothingness…even now, he did not feel "dead." Just trapped. Trapped on the other side of a glass wall, being forced to watch while Rinoa suffered…

Ultimecia's nightmare came back to him in a furious rush, and he almost lost his hold on his body because of it. He fought the images back, forced them out of his memory, and used his renewed panic to send strength to his limbs, his face and his lungs. He was aware of a few useless beats of his heart.

He opened his eyes, his face shaping into one of pleading sorrow. Though blind, he saw Rinoa's tears, and for a moment, he was almost sure he could feel the warmth of her hand as well. He remembered, once, a long time ago, he'd cried. He'd lost his best friend. She had gone away, and never come back. Now, he was putting Rinoa through that same agony. He could hardly stand it. "I'm sorry," he mouthed, then took in a breath. "I can't stay…if I could…" For a while, he held his breath, and he felt almost alive again, with this heartache inside of him. Rinoa only watched him, her own face pale and sick with sadness. Surely she realized that she was about to lose him again. Straining the last of his body's strength, he lifted his free arm, shakily, barely managing to touch her cheek with unfeeling fingertips. "I'm sorry," he repeated, finally releasing his breath. "I'll stay near. Please don't…" _Don't give up._

Rinoa shifted her grasp to Squall's hand on her cheek, and held onto it firmly. Her tears were beginning to subside. Rain was beginning to fall. It seemed the sky was crying for her, tears from an approaching storm, even as Squall receded into darkness. As she held on, she watched him close his eyes one more time, and felt his hand relax. 

With a vicious, vengeful roar, the black skies flashed blue.


	5. War of the Kings

5

War of the Kings

--

__

"Yes, Breog…it's your _turn, now."_

--

Griever's shockwave passed through Rinoa's shield as if it wasn't there.

It felt like a culmination of every natural disaster that had ever struck the Earth, even through Leviathan's wall of protection. Zell and Irvine lost their footing from the quake-like shaking. Rinoa flattened herself against the ground, trying desperately to escape the rush of heat and covering her eyes against the blinding light. The roar of the blast that followed was nothing short of deafening.

Zell had also hit the floor—if not in so graceful a manner as Rinoa—and clapped his hands over his ears, though he dared to peek out from under his eyelids. What raged beyond Leviathan's transparent walls looked like a mess of warring magic storms; thousands, millions of colors, blending and shifting and colliding. They all rushed over in a torrent of confusion, like a massive tidal wave of wild magical power, frothing sparks and flame. 

_Hell, that doesn't look like any spell I've ever seen. More like that Griever thing just puked up all the GF magic he ate for lunch. No wonder Ulty beat feet. This is fighting too dirty for that ugly robe of hers. Wonder if she's really controlling this guy?_

Poor Leviathan, Zell thought. 

__

I'll bet getting covered in magical barf just made his day, right there.

The attack left virtually nothing in its wake—except, incredibly, most of the patch of flying land. But the tiles had been shorn off, the flaking pieces of wall had been incinerated. The ground was scorched black.

Leviathan screamed.

Around them, the Water Guardian's wall began to melt. Pieces of the barrier tumbled down in cascades of water. Others cracked like thin ice and fell apart in shards. After a few more seconds, the entire structure collapsed around them.

Leviathan had planned it this way. He fell outward, instead of burying those he protected in his own debris. Once the wall was gone, his serpentine body partially consolidated, but did not move. It looked as if a giant eagle had swept down and torn him apart with beak and talon. Huge pieces of his lithe shape were missing, water and blood beginning to pool beneath the terrible rips in his body. His head lay on its side, torn across both cheeks. One horn was broken in half. The other, cracked and dripping water like an upturned icicle. The light in his aquamarine eyes was flickering. He didn't move, except to release a slow moan of pain. The disembodied pieces of wall lying scattered around him were fast evaporating into nothing.

Rinoa whimpered, and tried as hard as she could not to scream. Her entire body was saturated with pain. Connected to Leviathan, she, too, had felt and now suffered his agony, though she hadn't been injured, herself. Almost blind with the pain, she grappled madly with the ground in front of her, finding Squall's body and latching onto his arm. Shaking uncontrollably, she pulled herself close to him. Eyes wide and terrified, she clung doggedly to the heavy arm and curled up as close to Squall as she could. She shuddered as she felt Leviathan die.

Zell and Irvine watched, dazed, as the light faded in Leviathan's eyes, and the body quickly melted into pools of silvery liquid, which in turn began to evaporate into the quickening breeze, tendrils of steam flying away into the darkness as the wind picked up. 

__

So that's all she wrote, Irvine thought bleakly, remembering how Selphie had faded away into nothing beneath his hands. _No more GFs. _

"Man," Zell muttered, clapping Irvine heartily on the back. "It was nice knowin' ya. Even if y'are a girly-boy."

Irvine cast Zell the best scowl he was capable of. 

Zell backed off about an arm's length. "Hey, hey, didn't mean nuthin' personal."

Without a word, Irvine stretched his gun arm out, pointing his cocked weapon in the direction of Zell's head.

"WHOA! _Whoa, _justasec Irv, I didn't mean anything by that waitdon'tshoot_don'tshoot!" _Zell put up his arms as Irvine's finger closed over the trigger.

A hot wind whipped past the panicked SeeD. A deafening roar split his eardrums. He bowled over backward, squirming, clutching at his chest. He couldn't breathe. _Holy shit, the bastard SHOT me! _He must have gone over the edge. Irvine never missed his target, either. Zell coughed. His lungs felt as though filled with ash and dust. He resigned himself to the fact it was over. Slowly, he began to feel lightheaded, and stopped struggling. He let his breath leave him, and rested limply on the desecrated ground. A few more token coughs, and his body stilled.

__

Hell, man, I'm dead! I'm dead! _Wait, I shouldn't say 'hell' when I die, might give someone the wrong idea._

He waited for a few moments. Oddly, he didn't feel his soul rise out of his body, and he didn't see any great light like he was supposed to. He only saw darkness. He also noticed his shoulder was hurting. He shifted positions so he could die more comfortably. Still nothing happened. Except it was becoming harder and harder _not _to breathe.

Zell felt his shirt to find to his surprise that it was not soaked in blood. He tested a breath of air, and was rewarded with a coughing fit. His eyes snapped open—and the darkness dissipated. A few seconds more and he realized the burning in his lungs felt a lot like ash and dust because there was a lot of that on the ground. He must have breathed it in when he fell over after Irvine had shot him.

He managed to haul himself up on his knees, and searched himself for an injury. Zell blinked. Not so much as a scratch.

Another roar, much like the first one he'd heard when Irvine pulled the trigger, threatened to bust his eardrums. Zell twisted around, blinking soot-like dust from his eyes. Griever was clawing at his own face, blood streaming from his right eye. Zell heard Irvine cock his weapon again and let loose another bullet. This one found Griever's ear, ripping through to the other side.

Zell stood up, very slowly, and turned to face Irvine as he let fly another four rounds. The bewildered SeeD looked down at himself. No wounds. No blood. No pain. He was fine. "S-s-so," he stammered, "you didn't…s-shoot me?" 

Irvine stopped to reload, and answered Zell with very serious stare: "Don't ever touch me again. And _don't _call me a 'girly-boy.'"

Zell did his best not to blanch. "S-sure. Right. Uh, sorry. I just meant, 'you're girl-crazy.' Aheh. Yeah. Girl-crazy. That's…" he jumped a few feet in the air when the ground in front of him exploded. Again he stared incredulously at Irvine.

The sharpshooter smiled wryly. "Just testing," he said, then cocked the gun, aimed at Griever and fired another few shots into the monster's pelt.

Rinoa clung gamely to her sanity, fighting pain, fighting darkness. She had never experienced the defeat of one of her own Guardians. Certainly not a death so brutal as this. Leviathan's wail still echoed inside her head, his pain still ricocheted throughout her body, a wild bullet of torment that left her feeling numb and paralyzed. The tried to think of anything to concentrate on, anything to cling to that would allow her escape from this torture. 

Griever.

__

'Make him alive, and he can die.'

I remember, she thought through her confusion. _Give Griever life, and he can be destroyed. _She tried to concentrate on this thought, tried to remember what Squall had asked her to do. _He wanted me to try to control Griever…so he could take Griever's place. _How could Squall do that? _He must have learned how, _she reasoned, _somehow. _After all, he'd reanimated his own body for a short time, just to get his message through to her. 

Slowly, the pain in her body and mind began to fade away, and her senses began to take over. She opened her eyes, saw a blur of white directly in front of her, where she'd hidden her face in the white fur of Squall's jacket. She heard loud cracks—gunshots?—and roaring. Still trying to calm her shaky nerves, she pushed herself up to her knees, and looked to see what all the fuss was.

Griever was on the ground, looking tired and weak. Irvine was pumping round after round into the creature's face, flanks and chest. Griever seemed to be trying to ward the attacks away, but was too lethargic to do so. He was sweeping his wings rhythmically back and forth, not in an attempt at flight, but more mechanically, as if trying to get blood flowing again to limbs that were falling asleep. Though he was healing every wound Irvine inflicted, the process was slower than it had been before, and Griever was showing obvious signs of pain. But the demon GF seemed to be getting stronger with every passing moment. Rinoa was certain that in a matter of minutes, he would recover completely from what must have been an exhausting release of stored magic and power. Surely Irvine could see that, too. But by keeping up the pressure, doing as much damage as possible, maybe he could slow the process down a bit. In this timeless world, every second mattered.

Rinoa briefly wondered how long she had actually been talking to Squall. It had felt like minutes, but she doubted Griever had taken that long to cast his terrible spell. What had happened to time in those few lost minutes? Had she done something to alter it unconsciously, or was time a matter of perception in this world? She filed the question away; perhaps it would be useful to remember.

Meanwhile, Zell had gotten in on the fun. He harassed Griever's feet and face, digging the barbed tips of steely knuckles into the creature's nose and toes, then dancing away nimbly when a bladed wing tried to slash him or deadly paw tried to seize him. Rinoa cringed at the number of close-calls this provoked, but Zell seemed to be enjoying himself, and it was effectively distracting for Griever, who was by now riddled with fresh, healing and scarred-over bullet wounds.

The blackness around them had become absolute. Still, there was light, from _somewhere, _since Rinoa could see everything clearly. She didn't think about that, now, but wondered if Griever's ability to absorb magic was limited only to the life force of other Guardians. She remembered his pained reactions when Zell and Quistis had thrown spells at him. 

She might as well give it a try. The worst that could happen was that it would rejuvenate him completely, and they'd all be right back where they started. If she did nothing, that would happen anyway. It would just take longer. She stood up for the first time since Squall had given his life to save hers, and faced the vexed, but gradually recovering Griever. But she didn't leave Squall's side. "Zell, watch out—!"

Zell hardly had the chance to glance at her, and get the hell out of the way. 

A white spark triggered the rest of the Ultima spell, which detonated on Griever's position. As the vicious magic tore outward in waves, Griever howled, disappearing into the green belly of the blast.

The powerful shockwave created by the spell threw Zell a number of feet, and he landed hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. Coughing and gasping, he pushed himself up again, finding himself face-to-face with Rinoa once he'd managed to stand. "Thanks for the early warning." He cracked his neck and back to emphasize his sarcasm.

Rinoa offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

Griever writhed at the edge of the drop-off where the spell had pushed him. He was angry, and also hurt. Ugly plasma burns and scorch marks marred his sides, flanks and face. One of the sharp primaries in his left wing had been torn off.

Irvine had also been thrown back by the ultima spell's shockwave, but was far enough away to avoid losing his footing, and so continued to fire away at Griever, aiming to do more damage. He shot at the injured wing, the maimed face and burned legs, all of which were already beginning to heal. Griever bellowed and thrashed under the constant onslaught. 

Irvine called over his shoulder. "C'mon, Rinoa, that was good! Let's keep it up, okay?" He didn't say so, but he was fast running out of ammunition.

Zell pointed. "Yeah, he's right. Do it again, Rinoa. We can knock 'im over the edge."

Rinoa hesitated, watching Griever writhe. Would it make her any better than Ultimecia, if she continued like this, torturing the creature to death?

"C'mon, Rinoa! We ain't got all day!" Zell turned and cast his own spell, a Flare spell, which blasted Griever in the chest, knocking the enraged beast back a few more inches.

Rinoa tried to believe what Squall had said, that Griever was hollow, that he had no soul and therefore no emotions. But the pained screams of the beast were…

"Rinoa, look out!"

She felt her legs weaken as something was pulled from her, forcibly. Zell caught her and kept her from falling. When she recovered her balance, she noticed an "empty" place in her mind that had not been there before. All her dispel magic—gone! 

Another drain assaulted her, this one different, more familiar, and a little painful. She held onto Zell's shoulders as something else was taken from her, drawn away from her mind.

"Aw, man, this is _not _good!"

Shaking her head to clear it, Rinoa looked up to see what Zell had been referring to. A green-hued sheen of light surrounded Griever and then vanished. But it was clear what he'd done. 

__

He's protected himself from magic, and made it so that I can't break the spell!

She stood straighter, trying to look more confident than she felt. Griever couldn't block _all _magic. Just normal magic. She squinted, trying to figure the best place to strike while Irvine continued his barrage of bullets. _Zell's right. Knock him over the edge, give us more time to think of a way to beat him. He's recovering too slowly to make a quick comeback if we do that. _With a shout of effort, she hurled a small army of white lances at the struggling Griever. Sorceress lances were little more than glorified Holy magic that did not conform to most normal rules. They passed through Griever's reflective shield and struck him squarely in his furry, bloodstained chest.

The shots didn't knock him backward so much as an inch.

In fact, the red stains on his fur faded away with the light of the lances, and Griever stopped howling altogether. In a matter of moments, the rest of his wounds healed, and Irvine stopped firing; he might as well have been shooting blanks.

After a few more exhausted pants, Griever raised his head up, stared at them, and snarled in deep-set hatred.

Rinoa glanced at Zell, to glanced back. She swallowed dryly. "Did…did anyone…_scan _him, at any point in time?" she asked, fearing the answer.

Zell and Irvine exchanged glances, as well, and tossed the same answer back and forth a few times. "Um…nnnno."

"No."

"Uh-uh."

"Not me."

"I didn't."

She raised a thin eyebrow. "So no one knew he would eat that up like it was candy?"

More shaking heads.

If she'd had the luxury of smacking her forehead, Rinoa would have done so in that instant.

"So I made a big BOO-BOO! _Sue me! _I'll be _dead _by the time the subpoena gets through!" Zell protested, spreading his arms in entreaty.

Rinoa was incensed. "_You _were our designated scanner! You should've done it the second he showed up!"

"Sorry, I was a little _enthralled, _okay? You don't see one of _those _things fly outta some hole in the floor every day!"

"All the more reason to check it out like you're _supposed _to!" She planted her hands on her hips.

Zell sneered. "No telling if it woulda' done any good, anyway. Magic doesn't tell you everything. I didn't see _you _do anything about it. You're as good at it as I am."

"I didn't know you hadn't. If I did, I would."

"You didn't _ask!_"

"I shouldn't _have_ to!"

"Uh…guys? Ahem." Irvine, having backed away from the quickly rousing Griever, interrupted the escalating argument. "I think we have bigger problems, k'? Like, how we're gonna stay alive during the next five minutes."

All attention turned from bickering to Griever, who was pulling himself up on his hind legs, thrusting his wings, ready to take to the air again. His malevolent glare was trained on his human prey.

The world around them was black. All the Guardians were gone. There was nothing between Griever and his victims.

Save Rinoa, who put up her shield around them. She felt stronger, now, than she had minutes ago, when Griever had released his all-consuming blast and taken out Leviathan and Quetzal. Perhaps because there had been, for a short time, a surge of hope within her; the possibility that Griever was not invincible, the fact that Squall was truly still here with her, and that Ultimecia had apparently vanished completely. With any luck, she had stopped paying attention to them at all.

Lightning flashed as Griever launched himself into the air, readying for his next assault.

He never got the chance to make it.

From the coal-colored heavens raced a large ball of white-hot light. It made a bee-line straight for Griever, plowing into the beast's chest and exploding when it struck. Griever was thrown backward and fell below the floor. Rinoa, Irvine and Zell ducked to avoid the wake of the powerful collision. 

"The hell was _that?!"_ Zell shouted over the roar.

Rinoa didn't answer in words, but with a smile.

Squall's final Guardian had come at last.

**__**

{Such a ridiculous maze! Is it you who creates the chaos in this world?}

More lightning flashed, outlining black clouds in seams of blue and white. Griever regained altitude, hovering once more above the floating platform. He momentarily nursed a closing burn in his chest, then seemed to focus on the skies around him, searching for the source of the commanding, all-encompassing voice. 

**__**

{Soulless imposter! You recover quickly. But quickly enough, I wonder, to survive wounds that cannot heal?} 

Three more balls of blinding light burst from the dark clouds, these tinged with more blue than the first, and all from different directions. They, too, struck Griever, homing in on him as if tuned to his presence. They caught him in his chest, arm, and wing, booming and scorching him like the first. But as Griever twisted in the air, the blue color from the exploded orbs clung doggedly to him, refusing to relinquish their life-draining hold. When clawing at the blue-infected wounds didn't work, Griever twisted around to face Rinoa, and tried to draw the precious dispel he would need to remove the energy-sucking hue. Only to bring back nothing—he'd forgotten, he'd destroyed her dispel magic to keep her from breaking down his reflection spell.

Infuriated, Griever searched the sky for his attacker. He saw only blackness, and the silhouettes of dark clouds illuminated by erratic flashes of blue and white lightning.

The voice chuckled, thunder splitting the darkness. **_{Your only hope is to defeat me, Imposter. Come, then! Find me if you can!}_** A bone-jarring roar echoed in the vastness. It became an omnipresent chaos of its own, coming from nowhere and never-ending. Griever searched and twitched his ears, trying to pinpoint some sort of singularity in the confusion. The only thing he noticed was a new, extremely powerful shield had superimposed itself over Rinoa's. He was dealing with another Guardian, it seemed. But where?

The wind howled, though there was nothing to cause the furious sound. Lightning increased in the darkness, illuminating one side of the sky, then another, the thunder further adding to the chaotic roar uttered by Griever's new adversary. The clouds, in the brief flashes of visibility, began to roil and churn, creating a strobe-like effect that was not easy for Griever's mind to filter through.

Another ball of thick energy sneaked up on him, crashing into him from behind, burning his wing muscles. He dropped closer to the ground, and his reflection spell failed. Someone from below took the opportunity to throw a spell of their own, probably the sorceress girl. He avoided it for the most part, but lurched as it caught the end of his tail. The almost prehensile appendage went nearly numb. He had almost no time to draw the necessary esuna from her to cure the malady before he was again stuck by multiple blasts of pure energy, this time once from every angle. Howling, Griever beat his wings, propelling him away from the suddenly dangerous platform. He raced in a random direction, escaping the immobilizing magic of the sorceress girl. He had a more pressing enemy to deal with, now.

Rinoa screamed to be heard over the shrieking wind and deafening roars of beast and thunder. Even that seemed to do nothing. Neither Zell nor Irvine could hear her. She resorted to tapping the latter on his shoulder to get his attention. He looked away from the skies for a moment to stare at her.

She tried to make her voice carry over the chaos, and got only a puzzled look from her friend. He shook his head and yelled back something that was immediately drowned in the din. But she knew from his expression that he had could not hear her. She couldn't speak up any louder.

Rinoa sighed. She had the ability, as a sorceress, to speak to people in their minds. She loathed to use it, because it was too close to invasion of the mind for her to be comfortable with it, and whoever she chose to speak to would have no choice but to listen. Still, it seemed the easiest way to communicate in this situation. She concentrated, briefly, projecting her words outward so that both Zell and Irvine could hear her.

__

Listen, she thought simply, and waited for a reaction. She got one, though it wasn't quite what she had expected.

Irvine cocked his gun. Zell put up his dukes. Both turned in opposite directions and nearly collided with each other. They glanced around for the owner of the voice in their heads, but saw no one.

Exasperated, Rinoa again tapped Irvine on the back, this time much more harshly. _It's _me, _you two._ After a short pause to let this fact sink in, Rinoa was reasonably sure she had their attention. _We—no, Zell, trying to think back won't work. _She shook her head at his wide-eyed, and then vocal attempts to talk back. _I can only talk to you, so you're going to have to trust me. Now listen—_ She made the SeeD hand motion for silence, and this, Zell complied with, albeit reluctantly. Rinoa continued to motion with her hands, as though she were talking normally. _He's put up another wall between us and Griever, a much stronger one—what IS it, Zell?_

Zell had once again started fidgeting wildly, and for once thought past the idea of speaking or thinking his question. Instead he made a sharp gesture with his hand: _who?_

Rinoa rolled her eyes, trying her best to be patient. _Bahamut! Who else could have done that to Griever?_

Zell scratched his head, displayed an "I knew that" smile, followed by a shrug of apology.

__

Any other questions?

Both Irvine and Zell shook their heads.

Good! _Like I was saying, Bahamut and Griever are a match for each other. I have an idea how to trap Griever so that Bahamut can take him out, but you're going to have to help me, because in order to do it, I need Griever to be close, and standing still. With me?_

Head nodding.

__

All right. We might need a little luck to do this. If Griever comes anywhere close, I'm going to try and stop him with magic. She'd tried it a second ago, and Griever had drawn magic from her to correct it, so she knew it would work, if she could get a clear shot. _Once I do that, I need both of you to distract him, any way you can. Keep him close to the ground. That's all I need you to do._

For once, Rinoa was glad for the wind and thunder. The questioning looks she was getting held the question: so what was _she _going to do?

If only for Squall's sake, she wasn't certain it was her right to explain.

__

Can you do that?

Following bewildered looks, Rinoa got the nods she had hoped for. Zell mouthed a response, and Rinoa managed to read it on his lips:

"Yes, sir."

For a moment, her stern look wavered, as she realized what the answer had implied.

She was in command.

Griever's new enemy had not given him the opportunity to escape.

Every time he'd tried to flee further than a few hundred yards in any direction from the floating ground, he'd run headlong into a solid, impenetrable and invisible barrier. He was trapped in a small area around a storm's eye of danger, and his only way out was to find the perpetrator who caused his entrapment, and destroy him.

Bahamut wasn't going to make it easy.

The dragon swept through the darkness, spitting forth intelligent, deadly orbs of destruction at Griever. His best advantage over the demon Guardian was stealth amidst noise, control amidst chaos. Every once in a while, he'd betray a savagely armed wingtip amongst the churning clouds, or allow the lightning to silhouette his draconian form for a fraction of an instant. Then he would be gone again, nowhere near the place he had been before.

It was a tactic he used to terrify and confuse. Griever was not capable of fear, but he could be confounded. It worked just as well for Bahamut's purposes.

Fly behind him close enough to waft a breeze against his enemy's back. Vanish into the clouds before Griever could see him. Keep him guessing. Attack; spit an orb of vengeful wrath while circling, double-back, shoot another from a different angle and position. Keep him guessing. Fly in another direction, cause a lightning flash on the opposite side of the sky, twist the wind to coil the clouds, fool the enemy into thinking he was over there, instead of over here. Move from here to there the moment after the enemy realizes the ruse. Move again. Rush past him. Flip and shoot a blast from underneath him. Keep him guessing.

Press him toward the land, before he can realize what's happening. 

Bahamut knew of Rinoa's plot, had heard her thoughts and her voice over the crash and roar of the storm. He knew also of Squall's intentions. They were both sound, and safer than if Bahamut had chosen to face Griever in an all-out brawl. If he had done that, he may have won, but he never would have survived.

**__**

{Ready the gates of death,} he let his voice boom with the storm as he screeched, banking to make another dive beneath Griever, **_{your time is coming, children of the ardent truth!}_**

He let hang the cryptic message, knowing Griever would not understand it, but Rinoa would. The storm gathered around him, and he drew strength from it, sending a shower of lightning down upon his enemy. 

Griever stared straight into the blinding claws of electricity, searching for their source. He caught a glimpse of the dragon, watched as it vanished behind a cloud with a sudden burst of speed. He moved to intercept it. His claws grappled with black vapor. Another orb struck him from behind. He twisted around, but could see nothing. Something heavy and hard cracked against his wings, snapping a steely feather. He turned to fend off the tail and got a piece of flesh torn out of his shoulder.

Bahamut raised himself into the storm again, spitting out Griever's flesh and adding a powerful hind kick to Griever's face as he left. He snatched the tip of his tail from his enemy's grasp as he vanished into the darkness once more. When Griever tried to follow, he was shoved back by a barrage of ruthless energy fired from Bahamut's fanged mouth.

**__**

{If you are fool enough to follow me, then do so. Follow me, and meet your destruction!}

Bahamut tucked his wings and dived. He flipped up the end of one wing and let the air catch the other, twisting like a corkscrew, churning the clouds as he fell like lightning through the murk and wind. The trail he left was purposeful. The twisting wind expanded and the churning became rhythmic, turning to a pulse only Bahamut understood and controlled. He controlled all this—the entrapment itself was his creation, his own pocket of reality within Ultimecia's time-compressed universe. Near the bottom of his own enclosure, his wings snapped open, breaking his spin and his plummet. The wind swept downward, fueling the tornado he had created within his hurricane. As he hoped, Griever had followed him, gotten caught in the winds, and now thrashed viciously in the twister, vying for control of his flight. Bahamut howled a command to the maelstrom, a sound akin to thousands of warning sirens, all harmonized in a single, terrible wail of chaos and destruction. The fearful sound pushed the tornado, carried by errant winds and claws of lightning, to the edge of the platform of earth. Another shriek from the dragon, and the twister dissipated, depositing Griever violently onto the ground. 

Griever flipped onto his feet, crouched, and before any of the three humans could do anything to keep him there, launched himself for Bahamut, who hovered visibly at the end of a tunnel of twisting clouds. 

Bahamut held his position. He did not flee or hide in the clouds. His mouth opened, showing a deathtrap of sabre-like teeth and razor-edged beak. He watched Griever approach, and gauged the closing distance. His body tensed as though bracing for the impact. His wings stopped beating, held stiff and curved as though shading the clouds from the lightning that flashed around him. He did not fall. He hung suspended as the thunder roared with increasing intensity around him. His jaws opened wider, giving space to the single point of energy that was building to a small star amongst the vice of his crystalline teeth. The star hummed, pulling the energy of the storm greedily into itself.

The hum spread from the growing star to Bahamut's teeth, radiating over his horns and throughout the entire length of his body, the resonance seeking a harmonic frequency in the chaos. 

Griever was seconds from plowing headfirst into Bahamut when that frequency was reached.

The star exploded, and Bahamut channeled the blast so that it shot out in a perfectly straight, unavoidably fast, unstoppable streak of pure power that would have torn fault lines in the earth. The energy beam caught Griever in the chest, carrying him back, back, back, snapping bone and ripping through flesh, before finally smashing the lion-beast against the side of the floating land. The beam pinned him there, drilling into him ruthlessly as he tried to struggle, twist, make any move to escape it.

Bahamut's green eyes flared with the power, and he added his roar to that of the projected energy, causing the heavens to shake as violently as the land, which, for Griever, may as well have been a shooting range, with Bahamut as judge, jury and firing squad. The dragon kept up the force as long as he could make it last, crushing Griever's chest, rendering the beast's wings useless.

Finally the star was spent, and Bahamut's wings began a rhythmic thrust again as the last of the power left him. He raised himself into the clouds once more, and sped toward the floating land. He reached it before the last of his terrible beam had spent itself on Griever, swooped below the beast before it could fall, and caught the demon Guardian by its broken and tattered wings. 

**__**

{Follow a cobra into its burrow and be struck.} 

With a few quick thrusts of his own wings, the dragon hauled Griever aboveground, and dumped the creature's battered form unceremoniously on the dead floor.

**__**

{Follow a crocodile into water, and be drowned.}

Griever hit the ground and slid a few meters to a stop. He laid there, motionless except for an intermittent twitching. The smell of scorched flesh was carried off on the wind.

**__**

{Follow a Guardian Force into its own realm, and likewise face your doom.}

Bahamut flew higher and began a tight circling around the land, knowing that his work here was not yet done. He watched Griever with eagle-eyed intensity, passing low over the three humans and ignoring their awed stares. His attacks had beaten Griever into helplessness. Like thrusting fire into the stump of a hydra's severed head, the carefully placed, life-draining blue energy strips were keeping Griever from regenerating in his chest and left wing. Bahamut's eyes narrowed to green slits. He had done his job. Now all that was left was for Rinoa to do hers.

Rinoa fought against the ache in her weary heart. She stared at Griever's crippled, crumpled form, and wondered at the brutality she had seen. Zell and Irvine were hooting and cheering. It seemed their assistance wouldn't even be needed. Griever looked dead.

Rinoa knew better. Griever was alive, and very awake, very aware. No doubt in incredible pain. 

Her eyes hardened. Griever wasn't real. He wasn't even truly alive—just a killing machine, conjured by Ultimecia, that happened to be animal in form. If she wanted this violence to end, she would have to end it now. She didn't twitch as she watched Griever slowly curl the claws of his good front paw—the other had been crushed upon impact. It seemed this floor was impervious, for the most part. More impervious even than Griever. 

Griever's broken hand was not resetting any bones or mending any tears in the flesh. A glowing blue streak of light seemed to inhabit that arm, and was spreading like a cancer toward areas of pain, strands of blue reaching like disfigured fingers toward every wound. As the beast struggled to get up, his chest became visible. It seemed the entire cavity had been replaced by gelatinous blue light. Hideously, his heart was visible, dull and pulsating in the garish blue glow.

But everything not infested by blue was slowly healing, and Rinoa knew it wouldn't be long before Griever had the ability to stand and attack, however crippled. 

She heaved a resolute breath as Griever's angry eyes opened, his lip pulled back in a snarl.

__

Go, she ordered both Irvine and Zell, who had long since stopped their celebrating. _Now. He's recovering. Hurry!_

Watching them rush forward to obey her command, Rinoa closed her eyes. She stood still, and crossed her arms in an **X **across her chest. Bowing her head, she concentrated, turned her senses inward. She blocked out the wind, the roar of the hurricane, the distant gunshots and the resulting bellows of anger.

She searched within herself for the power Squall spoke of, this ability she supposedly had to control the minds and spirits of other beings. It was different from just broadcasting thoughts to other people. She wasn't sure what to look for, knew only that she had to try. If Squall said it was possible, then it must be. About something so serious, he would never lie, or speak soundly of anything he wasn't sure of.

The trance she entered was a vulnerable one, releasing all barriers, or even the awareness of her physical surroundings. The knowledge of how to fall back into this place was instinctive, something that came to her through the power she held inside her. How to work inside it was another matter; never before had she done this for longer than was necessary to cast a spell.

She was suddenly aware of colors. She did not see them, per se, but they were there, nevertheless. Slowly, images began to form around them, silhouettes of the people or creatures they represented. A bright ball of yellow, red and blue flame centered within Zell's outline. A dimmer, but larger star of gold, steel and white marked Irvine's position. Above her, circling, a deep maelstrom of platinum, sharp green and intense blue represented Bahamut. She could not see or sense herself. 

Before her was an outline of Griever's body, but no colors tainted his shape. Only a spot of black—no, not even black. More like _nothingness _where his spirit should be. 

So what was her job? What could she do here?

She watched Zell and Irvine for a moment as they neared Griever, attacked him. The beast responded with swiping claws and a lashing tail, but had little mobility. 

Another flare of color caught her attention. A large nebula, shimmering with power, meandered its way into her awareness. Blood red and Amber. Deep, smoky violet. And a core so white-hot, it defied definition. The colors themselves had no outline, seemed to float freely in this vastness she perceived.

__

That must be Squall… She watched as the nebula moved to a position relative of Griever's outline to hovered there, waiting.

Now it was her turn. What was she supposed to do? 

Suddenly a flash of light brought her attention back to the skirmish between Griever and humans. 

Her heart lurched, snatching her out of her trance.

__

Zell!

"Ah-h-h SCREW _YOU_, PUNK!"Zell had managed to get atop Griever's back, and rammed his right fist into the back of the monster's head, letting the barbs of his gloves hook the creature's flesh. He was rewarded with a roar, and very violent thrashing.

Griever shook his head viciously to rid himself of the bothersome pest. His good arm reached up to slash at Zell, who avoided the claws deftly. One of Irvine's shots struck the beast's horns, very close to Zell, who shook his fist at him "Aww, hell! Hey, man, shoot this bitch, not me!" 

"Sorry," Irvine shouted back over the wind, "hard to tell the difference, sometimes!"

"Smartass." Muttering to himself, Zell slid down the lion-thing's shoulders and readied for another run at its face. "That's the _second _time he's almost killed me."

He froze as soon as his feet touched the ground. Slowly, suddenly, truly unable to breathe, he stared down at himself. He heard Rinoa scream his name.

The tips of three huge, blood-red claws protruded from his chest.

Griever growled long and deep, lifting the hapless SeeD into the air and up to the harsh winds. The beast's blue eyes, cold and inquisitive, admired his work from afar, as if examining the intricacies of a dead butterfly's wing.

A shriek from above interrupted Griever's contemplative pose. Bahamut fell from his tireless circling, landing heavily on Griever's back. The dragon's powerful jaws clamped shut on the demon Guardian's hand, breaking the bones and forcing Griever to drop Zell, who fell to the ground in a pitiful heap.

Irvine was already there to drag his friend out of the way while Bahamut took up the job of harassing Griever. 

Rinoa ran to them, for the first time leaving Squall's still form. She didn't need to protect him anymore. He was still around. Zell needed her help right now.

Zell was jerking, fighting to breathe, but only succeeding in coughing blood. His eyes wide and frightened, he stared wordlessly as Rinoa crouched beside him. She laid her hand over his chest, covering as much of the terrible wounds as possible, then willed herself to calm. She could heal him, if he could hold onto life for long enough. Ignoring Irvine's questions, she half-closed her eyes and focused on Zell's plight, willing the flesh to close, willing the body to heal. She felt his pulse cease under her hands, trying not to panic as she watched comprehension fade from his eyes. _Just a few more minutes Zell, hold on just a few more minutes!_

A few minutes passed. The wounds healed. Rinoa came out of her light trance, and touched Zell's cheek with her bloodied hands, now stained with the life of two friends. "Zell, you're all right, now. Come on, come back to us," she whispered desperately. But hope was dying almost as quickly as the life in Zell's eyes had. Though healed, he still stared ahead, unbreathing, his eyes as soulless as Griever's.

Irvine tried Zell's pulse. Nothing. Rinoa closed her eyes, fading into a trance once more. She cast about for signs of Zell's bright colors. They were gone. 

Grief welled inside her again. Another friend, lost to whatever prison Ultimecia had waiting for him.

Bahamut pushed away from Griever, pumping his wings powerfully and rising out of the creature's reach. The dragon growled, thunder in his throat. Griever was indeed a leach for the power of Guardians. The more contact Bahamut had with him, the more he felt drained by this monster. He could not continue grappling with this false Guardian. It would serve no purpose but to make the beast stronger.

The girl was distracted with her dying friend. Bahamut hovered out of Griever's reach, watching, ready to alert Rinoa and her remaining friend if necessary. Griever seemed to be resting for the moment, breathing heavily, slowly healing as much of his body as was possible.

The dragon looked on in silent patience. But at the bottom of his dark heart, he hoped Rinoa hurried before Griever became mobile once again.

Rinoa stayed in her trance, again seeking out Griever's shape, if only to distract herself from Zell's loss. The sight of Squall's colors still hanging readily over the beast's form encouraged her. She tried to think of how she might control the beast, make it vulnerable so that Squall could inhabit its mind, and by giving it a soul, also give it life. Only so that they could take that life away again. 

It had to be done. So long as Griever existed, Ultimecia could control it, and none of them would be safe.

Rinoa thought back on the times she'd healed someone with her abilities. Squall and Zell…when she thought about it, healing someone wasn't that different from controlling their body, in a way; if she could coax wounds into healing themselves, surely she could coax a body or mind to open up to…an invader?

She focused on Griever, taking in the image, and the emptiness. In her mind's eye, she pictured that emptiness breaking, opening up to allow something to fill the void. The more she clarified the image in her mind, the more she felt herself reaching out to make it happen, felt something of herself move in to change what she saw into what she wanted to see. 

Slowly, what she saw, began to resemble the image she held in her mind.

Distantly, she heard Griever's angry roar, but didn't let that stop her. The nothingness inside the beast opened up, just a crack, just for an instant.

Squall rushed to fill the void before the meager window had a second more to close.

Griever's roar broke off abruptly. His body relaxed and shuddered. His eyes, coldly blue, seemed to clear all of a sudden. Three vicious wisps of blue light let go of his tortured body, rising above him to return to their master. 

The Guardian sighed and shook again. He was alive, and he was free. 

Moments of laying prone were a relief to his frantic mind. He felt his terrible wounds begin the gradual process of healing, where before the blue had festered within them. But the blue energy only fed on non-living power sources. He was alive now. He was free. For a short time, that was all he knew.

He could see his arm and its ugly violet fur, and watched dreamily as the hue began to change. Slowly, the pigment shifted: murky, muddy red; deep, rich brown; sleek, solid black.

His claws changed color, too, losing their bloody tint to an opaque, steel-grey sheen. 

His ears twitched in the harsh wind, listening to the thump of dragon wings, not unlike his own heartbeat, and the murmuring of humans not far away. He knew those humans. They were his friends.

They would be here, soon, to kill him.

It was a fact he'd known since the moment he'd comprehended his individuality. He accepted it, knowing it was right. Soon, he not only would be free of emptiness. 

He would be free of this body as well. 

Rinoa watched, feelings of wonder, fear and sadness warring inside of her. Wonder, because of Griever's unexpected transformation. Fear, because she didn't know what the creature was about to do, now that Squall's spirit temporarily resided in it. Sadness, because she knew that now, somehow, they had to find a way to kill the beast. 

She looked over to Bahamut, who hovered nearby. The storm's intensity was beginning to lessen, but the sky was still dark and thick with clouds. Bahamut seemed not to notice anything, had his glowing green eyes trained distrustfully on this "new" Griever. It appeared the dragon was still reluctant to attack Griever, at least head-on. Understandably so, judging from what Griever had done to the other Guardians. 

She watched as Griever weakly pushed up on his front paws—in a very human motion—and was surprised to find the grossly elongated limbs had shortened to a more normal length. Sleek black fur covered Griever's body, now, and though he still bore a crown of red-tipped horns, wings of knife-like feathers and a mane of snowy fur, he looked very different, far less vicious and far more majestic than his old self. The blade on the end of his long tail flicked back and forth as the slowly recovering beast looked around at his surroundings.

Then, Rinoa saw his eyes.

They were still blue, still cold, but held in them a soul.

The eyes were tired, perhaps sad, but they were alive, and their expression was a familiar one. Rinoa held her breath and tried to keep her emotions in check. 

Griever was almost fully healed, now, and still made no move to attack or even stand up. Instead he lay down where he was, heaved a great sigh, and appeared to dose off, waiting for someone to come carry out his destiny.

Relatively satisfied that Griever was no longer a danger, Bahamut made an unusual decision—of a personal nature. He could not kill Griever, yet. That would defeat the idea he had in mind.

Rinoa had retreated back to her vigil over Squall's body, though her eyes remained trained uncertainly on Griever. She was startled when she heard the heavy wingbeats near her. As her world was darkened by the dragon's shadow, she craned her neck to try and meet Bahamut's stare as he hovered low and landed, powerful talons gripping the ground and burrowing deep, as if the rock was nothing more than loose dirt. His long tail and clawed hands remained slightly above the floor, the former balancing him, the latter useless for the time being. Dark scales, platinum and steely indigo, reflected every flash of lightning in the turbulent skies.

Heavy winds, both from Bahamut's wings and the surrounding storm, whipped at Rinoa's hair, forcing her to brush it away once or twice in order to see this magnificent giant who stood before her.

Bahamut kept his armored wings half-furled, crouching near to the ground and leaning over Rinoa as though protecting her. He shook his horned head, ridding it of rain that did not exist, then curled his neck forward, lowering his head until it was level with an awe-stricken Rinoa's face. The end of his fanged mouth only feet away from her, his eyes glowing like green embers, the dragon stared at the young sorceress for a long moment, then shifted his gaze from her to the body of the boy he had once considered his chosen. Here his eyes lingered, and when he spoke, his voice was known only to Rinoa.

**__**

{You stand by him…for love?} 

Rinoa wasn't sure if the question was a critical one. She nodded slowly, refusing to be hesitant.

**__**

{What has happened, here? This, it should not be.}

Shouldn't be? Rinoa blinked, surprised at the Guardian's declaration. _What does he mean? Does he know what Squall's future is…or was like?_

****

{I do not see futures,} Bahamut explained, hearing her thoughts as if she had spoken them aloud. **_{I smell power. I sense destiny. When we first battled in that sorry prison of an island, I realized the SeeD has fate about him. His life would be riddled with many great doings, good or evil, I do not know…but not to end so soon. This sorceress, Ultimecia, has committed a temporal felony, the rape of time, as it were. She will not only destroy lives, but destinies, as well! This cannot be allowed to continue.}_**

Rinoa knelt, head bowed, over Squall's body. She stared wearily at Bahamut's taloned foot beside her. _Can you, _she pleaded, _can you help us destroy Ultimecia?_

Bahamut thought in silence. Even his powers, vast as they were, were uncertain in Ultimecia's distorted haven. He could fight, and he could defend Rinoa and her last remaining friend. But destroy Ultimecia? He wasn't sure anyone could do that, except Ultimecia herself.

**__**

{I will use every breath of strength in my soul to help you survive,} he answered finally, **_{but the sorceress lives within death, time and her own insane reality, where she is master of all rules. Your best weapon, I fear, cannot be gauged in terms of power alone. Ultimecia is hate, and malevolence, and chaos. Death is the environment in which she chooses to work. You cannot destroy a flame by showering it with more blazes.}_** Seeming suddenly uncomfortable, the King of Guardians shifted his weight from one foot to the other. **_{And the hottest fires can never be doused. Not even by the absolute cold of space.} _**He tilted his thorny head back, as if to see the stars he spoke of. **_{All begins and ends with oneself. Remember that. It is the universe you create for yourself that determines your ultimate fate.}_** Again he gazed down as Squall's still form, and to Rinoa's astonishment, the dragon's face creased in sorrow. **_{Believe in your death, and you will have it; believe in your love, and you will have that, too…that is the greatest triumph, and the most horrible defeat, all in the same equation. That, like a soul, can never be twisted by any magic except its own.}_**

Is that why Ultimecia wanted Squall to give himself to her willingly? Because only Squall could really affect Squall?

****

{She would not be able to force his acquiescence.} Bahamut glared at Rinoa, looking shocked and angered at her question. **_{If she attempted to seduce it, instead, then there must be a reason she needs him to believe in _her _reality. Am I right in assuming he denied her?}_**

Unsure of who the dragon's anger was directed at, Rinoa shrank back, nodding slightly in response to his question. _She tried to make him give her his soul—_

****

{NOT his soul,} the Guardian blurted, his voice resounding in Rinoa's head, **_{but his self-will! With possession of that, she would _take _his soul, whether he wished it or not!}_**

Rinoa put her hands over her ears, but could not block the enraged voice. She forgot about the world around her, forgot about time. Time stood still.

**__**

{She must be seeking an energy source, if she is so desperate as to wish such a joining.} Lividly, Bahamut searched Rinoa's memory, delving rigorously into her thoughts like pages in a book. **_{He believed she wanted a power he held? An ability, or strength. Could it be that even I have underestimated the magnitude of his power?}_**

I don't know what you're talking about, Rinoa cried out before Bahamut could roar anything else into her mind. _She tortured him! I watched…he had no 'power' over anything! If he did, it didn't save him when he came to protect me…_ Choking on tears, she let her hands down by her sides. _You're not being fair! Everyone has expected super-human things out of Squall, and he's just a guy, not much older than me! Why won't anyone just leave him alone? You can't talk about him like he's some kind of…laboratory experiment! His only "power" is self-sacrifice and love! He cares more about other people than he'd ever admit… _Slowly, she dared to look into the Guardian's leering green eyes. _But he's not perfect, and he's not out to be a hero. He hides everything he feels because he doesn't think he can stay strong if he lets go. He makes mistakes and other people suffer because of it. He's scared of dying, and he's scared of being alone. He fights because it helps him battle the things he's scared of. He gets angry, and sad, and happy, sometimes. He's got feelings just like any other person. He's a human being… He hasn't got any special powers. _Shaking, she looked away from Bahamut's stare. _Ultimecia and I are the only ones who do._

Bahamut watched Rinoa carefully for the next few minutes that did not pass. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, no longer angry, and not as overwhelmingly deafening as it had been. **_{All these things define an individual, but…you underestimate what power can be found in one's ability to fear, or to love. These things that are part of a person…also are a part of the soul. You must know something about Squall, Rinoa.}_** The dragon waited, long enough for Rinoa to look up expectantly. **_{Regardless of what he wishes to be, he is stronger than you are likely to imagine. The strength Ultimecia wants, what she feeds on, is what you would call the will to exist. By subduing the will of others, she can control them. Not all people are so readily bent to her desires, and Squall is too strong for her dominating presence to conquer. If she had found a way, she could draw that strength from him, and her power would be unimaginable. A sorceress can use the power of a man's being to augment her own abilities—if he can take it. If Squall is strong enough to handle the punishment, that alone is a power beyond most men, who would be shredded by her ruthlessness. They are useless to her. Squall is not. But he is also not an option for her any longer. For her to use him, he would have to be centered in a living body. By dying, he has robbed Ultimecia of her greatest prize.}_**

But…if that's true, then it could work the other way around, couldn't it? If Squall were alive, now…

****

{You could use his strength, and he yours, and you could crush Ultimecia and release the world from time compression.}

…If he were alive.

****

{Indeed. "If."}

Time resumed. Rinoa looked over at Griever's crumpled form. Irvine was standing where he had been all along, having turned to watch as Bahamut landed. Did he know what had been exchanged between Rinoa and the dragon, or had he been unaware of the glitch in time? She didn't know, and quite frankly, didn't care. Her mind was spinning with the very concept that Bahamut had given her. Using someone's willpower as _power? _It sounded ridiculous, but at the same time, made perfect sense: if this entire world was created through Ultimecia's vision, then wouldn't the power of ideas, emotions, and the feeling of reality created by one's sense of self, be the greatest source of strength? Translating emotions and perspectives literally into physical ability. 

Ultimecia used fear and torture to get her way. If Squall had been alive, Rinoa wondered, could she, herself, have used his "strength" through love and trust? Would he have let her?

Her narrow eyes widened as she watched Griever stir. _Squall said he'd give Griever his sense of self. Is he still inside Griever's body?_

****

{Yes,} Bahamut rumbled, a near-purr in her mind. **_{He is.}_**

Griever gave a low groan of intangible pain. His mind squirmed with conflicting images of destruction and life. He remembered battles, blood and killing, but he also remembered soft words, darkness, a painless touch on a face that wasn't his own. Or was it—? 

His mind warred with his soul, rejecting it, trying to force it out of his body. He remembered being soulless. He didn't want to be that way again. Too empty…too violent.

His eyes opened and he took in the image of the dragon and the young sorceress, both knelt over a body…his own? His real body. But it was dead. He couldn't go back.

__

I want to stay here, he thought in defiance of his mind. _I don't want to be empty or alone again! _At least here, he was warm. Here, he had surroundings, a world, and could see someone else. He knew he was destined to die, but was finding it harder and harder to let go of this life. Death was an end to chaos, but it was so lonely…

His war froze abruptly as Rinoa stood up. She had been looking at him for a long time. As he watched, she began to walk toward him, her eyes half-open and entranced. _He _was entranced…so lost in her dark eyes…

Something inside of him jerked, as if charged by a jolt of electricity. The fur rose along his back. The girl was…

Startled shouts, human and animal, invaded his thoughts. He roared, suddenly standing and rearing up on his hindquarters, one voice crying out louder than all the others in his consciousness.

__

Rinoa, what are you doing!?

His mind took advantage of his soul's letup, and gleefully forced him out.

Rinoa stumbled backward amidst Griever's roars and thrashing. She had found Squall's "colors" still residing within the beast's shape, using the same technique she had tried before. This time, though, she had tried to get closer, had reached out and _touched _the colors she had only looked at before.

The reaction had been instant, and violent. The red, amber and violet nebula had flared brightly and lashed out, knocking her back. Only seconds later, it left Griever's body and vanished into the nothingness.

Rinoa slipped and fell in her retreat, too weak from the shock of being rejected and the sadness of watching Squall flee from her. She stared as Griever spasmed and shrieked, and watched in horror as the sickly violet hue began to return to his fur. 

Irvine rushed over to her and hauled her to her feet, supporting her by the arms. He was dragging her away from Griever, who bellowed in pain as his forelimbs began to stretch beyond a natural length.

__

Wait, he's all I have! Rinoa struggled against Irvine's grip, but he held her fast and pulled her back, away from the twisting beast. 

No sooner was Griever returned to his unbalanced shape when he attacked. He leapt from his place into the air, caught the rushing wind, and dove for his targets. Rinoa had no barrier up, and Bahamut's shield had long since been released. There was nothing between Griever and his victims, this time. Except a shadow.

That shadow became darker. A terrible roar blasted the world, and Bahamut shot from behind the two humans, meeting Griever head-on, claws extended, mouth agape, tail straight as a picket. The two creatures collided amidst an explosion of Bahamut's breath, and both tumbled horns-over-tail from the air, hissing, snapping, shrieking, warring. 

Bahamut's claws found Griever's belly and kicked viciously, slicing his enemy open, tearing bloody gouges in the soft fur. This time, the wounds did not heal immediately. They stayed. They bled.

The dragon beat at Griever with his clawed wings, inflicting as much damage as possible. His tail wrapped around the lion-beast's legs, while Griever's huge hands eluded the dragon's comparatively short arms. Bahamut learned early that biting at Griever's neck was useless; unbreakable horns and a harrowing white mane made it almost impossible to get a good hold. But the fact meant little. Bahamut's impervious armor protected him from claws and teeth. He outweighed and outgunned the beast. A point-blank blast burned Griever's fur away, exposing the flesh beneath. Another took away the flesh, revealing muscle, blood, and ribs. With his horns, Bahamut knocked Griever's head out of the way, and dug his front claws into the raw muscle of the demon-Guardian's chest, baring ribs, lungs and an ugly, pulsating blue heart.

Time to end this beast's wrath now. Pinning the still-struggling Griever against the floating ground, Bahamut's jaws hung agape, and once more the power came to him, from the air, from the storm, which was beginning to twist and writhe around them. Bahamut ignored Griever's tail chopping at his back, thrust his wings for balance, and concentrated on building the energy to its breaking point before he released it.

Griever's arms stopped their fruitless assault on the dragon's hide, and he stilled, watching blankly as his death built up before him, in the form of energy near Bahamut's maw. The force reached its peak, and flickered…

In the space of a heartbeat, the lion-beast gave a pained shout of a roar, wrapped one arm around the dragon's neck, hugged it close, and used both hands to force Bahamut's mouth shut.

Bahamut was able to emit a brief, high-pitched cry, like that of an injured dog, before the gathered energy was swallowed into his gullet. All his destructive power, all the deadly force consolidated within his body, detonated inside of him. Griever released him and kicked him away as the explosion ripped through him. The dragon opened his mouth in a hideous scream, spewing forth a fountain of energy and blood that rained back down upon him, burning through his armor, melting his wings into skeletal fingers. The energy tore him apart from within, and from without, drowning him, bathing him in his own deadly breath. 

By the time Bahamut had stopped flailing, there was little left of him save a dull, blackened shell.

Yet the dragon hung on to life. Hardly able to move, his eyes opened, as green and frightful as ever, and stared in dull hope at his enemy, not far away. Shivering, Bahamut growled in meager, agonized triumph, the fingers of his butchered wings quivering. Griever was as beaten, as helpless, as he.

The demon Guardian lay prone on his back, belly slashed and ribs open to the air. The beast's wings were broken, shattered by the pounding they had taken from Bahamut's own. His breaths, visible by the rise and fall of exposed, blood-covered lungs, were getting weaker.

Bahamut realized that Griever was dying. As was he. 

A fearful cloud of chaos began to form around Griever's body. The shockwave, Bahamut remembered with horror, his angry eyes widening in his char-stained face. Griever must have absorbed enough power from him to cast the evil spell one last time. 

The dragon shivered. It was over. 

He had failed.


End file.
